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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The flow control capability (especially for separation control) of a dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuator (DBD-PA) has been investigated extensively. However, these studies have been conducted under ideal conditions, such as wind tunnels and computational environments, and limited studies have investigated the effects of plasma actuators in an actual environment. In this study, the flow control capability of a DBD-PA under natural and in-flight conditions was investigated via field flight tests using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The DBD-PA driving system was constructed with a small high-voltage power supply on a 2-m-span UAV. With the support of an autonomous flight system, the pitch angle gradually increased as the airspeed decreased, and the stall occurred from the cruise state. This flight procedure was conducted with the DBD-PA on or off, and 246 pairs of flights were operated. The results revealed that a flight state with a higher pitch angle and lower airspeed occurred when DBD-PA was switched on. In addition, the moment of stall was quantitatively determined from the flight log, and it was confirmed that the maximum pitch angle when DBD-PA was switched on tended to be larger than that when DBD-PA was switched off. These results indicate that flow control with a DBD-PA on a 2-m-span UAV was effective in natural and in-flight situations.

Details

Title
In-Flight Demonstration of Stall Improvement Using a Plasma Actuator for a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Author
Sekimoto, Satoshi 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Kato, Hiroki 2 ; Fujii, Kozo 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Yoneda, Hiroshi 3 

 Department of Information and Computer Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo 125-8585, Japan; [email protected] 
 Independent Researcher, Tochigi 320-0834, Japan; [email protected] 
 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Teikyo University, Utsunomiya 320-8551, Japan; [email protected] 
First page
144
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
22264310
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2642318874
Copyright
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.