Variable fidelity conceptual design environment for revolutionary unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper describes the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle's conceptual design environment. A review of current unmanned aerial vehicle design challenges is conducted, which leads to the description of the desired capabilities for the environment. The key characteristics of the design environment include the capability of integrating variable fidelity, modular, and flexible disciplinary analysis tools. The environment is tested against available data from the AeroVironment Pathfinder Plus vehicle. In addition to the Pathfinder Plus mission analysis, aerodynamics, propulsion, and structures performance results are discussed and then applied to a hurricane-tracker mission. This case study demonstrates the environment's capability to perform and explore new types of missions. A further exploration of the Pathfinder Plus design space is conducted using response surface methodology. This investigation provides valuable information regarding design tradeoffs, which are essential for the selection of a final vehicle architecture.