Implementing Micropatterned Surface for Drag Reduction in UAV

Abstract

The Aerodynamics of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle plays a vital role in determining its performance. The reduction in drag helps the UAV to augment its flight time in terms of range as well as endurance. In our work an attempt was made to reduce the drag by means of changing its surface morphology in micro level without changing the entire shape and size of the UAV. The patterned surface morphology in the form of grooves and pillars were introduced on the surface of UAV. The wettability and aerodynamic parameters were quantitatively measured on the target micro patterned surface and the relation between them was explored in this work. The optimized size and shape of the micro patterns which supports to reduce drag in UAV was found experimentally in this work.