Optimisation et simulation de l'aile de l'UAS-S45 de Hydra Technologies, ainsi que le développement du simulateur de vol du Raptor de Tristar Multicopters

Abstract

This thesis explains the design of a morphing wing within a flight simulator for the Hydra Technologies UAS-S45. It also explains the development of another simulator, this one for the atypically configured Tristar Raptor, a tricopter. During the morphing wing development process, different optimisation algorithms were developed with the aim to find the best. Among the software used to simulate the morphing wing, some of them were found to be less suitable to the optimisation process than others. The VLM software demonstrated that it could not produce reproducible results and was therefore rejected for use in the optimisation algorithm, because variable results for the same input may negatively affect the optimisation algorithm. The VLM method was firstly used for its ability to model the whole wing and its vortices, while it still had a reasonable solving time per iteration. Since it was found to be unsuitable, VLM was therefore replaced by the Xfoil software. Xfoil is applied on an airfoil with a drooping leading edge and a morphing trailing edge, and their shapes are inspired by existing morphing techniques. Therefore, 2 different trailing edge morphing, as well as a single droop nose leading edge technique are investigated. This thesis defines how each new airfoil is parameterized and how the number deformation variables are reduced to find the best shape that would increase the overall aircraft performance. A simulator for the Tristar Raptor is produced to model the flight performance of a tricopter and to consider other in-flight effects that may normally affect any multicopter type aircraft, including its kinematics with the ground. Such kinematics mean that the tricopter can takeoff and land on the ground in a physics-based simulation environment. The whole flight simulation MATLAB model was integrated with the FlightGear software to enable the tricopter flight dynamics visualisation, and different types of flight controls are in the simulator. An existing UAS-S45 simulator was also improved, including similar visualisation and kinematics with the ground as for the Raptor; the kinematics method it different; the morphing wing systems are developed; thus, it is possible to simulate in real-time the morphing UASS45 and compare its results with those of the baseline UAS-S45.

Date	27 Aug 2022
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Ruxandra Botez (Supervisor) & Tony Wong (Co-supervisor)