Author: Alessandro Fontanella
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Reduced-order aeroelastic modeling and control of inflatable multirotor drones
Inflatable and soft structures offer interesting opportunities for the development of lightweight, compact, and deployable aerial vehicles. In particular, multirotor drones based on inflatable structural frames could combine conventional propulsion and control systems with lightweight and compliant supporting structures. Such configurations may enable drones that can be compactly stored and rapidly deployed, while also providing…
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Aerodynamics of drone flight in complex wind farm flows (no CFD)
The use of drones in wind farms offers significant opportunities for automated inspection, measurements of the atmospheric wind, and the transport of tools and equipment. In these applications, drones may operate close to wind turbines and therefore encounter a highly complex aerodynamic environment characterized by atmospheric turbulence, wind shear, and the unsteady wakes generated by…
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Physics-based aerodynamic modeling of drone formation flight (no CFD)
The rapid growth of autonomous aerial systems is driving the development of drone swarms capable of performing cooperative missions such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure inspection, search and rescue, and parcel delivery. As these applications increasingly rely on multiple drones operating in close proximity, aerodynamic interactions between their rotor wakes become an important factor affecting flight…