Novel Propulsion Architectures for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Advisors: Dr. Choon Tan
Engineering of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a dynamic and critical area of aerospace research and development. These aerial systems have applications for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, package delivery, and small scale passenger transportation. Because of the constraints imposed by the missions, the aircraft will have to takeoff and land from confined areas and with minimal ground support infrastructure.
The goal of the project is to identify, assess, and apply current and novel propulsion and aerodynamic technologies to the UAV. The challenge is to put forward novel and relevant contributions to the state of the art in UAV design, particularly with regards to their propulsion. The research will consider and build on as appropriate previous work within the GTL on aviation concepts such as hybridized powertrains, vertical to horizontal flight transition, novel powerplant concepts, and boundary layer ingestion.