• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.26-33
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• 2005

Smart UAV, which adopting tiltrotor aircraft concept, requires vertical take-off and landing, long endurance and high speed capability. These contradictable flight performances are hard to meet unless the operation of flap system which should reveal optimal performance for each flight mode. In order to design SUAV flaperon satisfying the three performance requirements, various configurations are generated and their aerodynamic performances are analyzed using numerical flow computations around flap systems. Considering aerodynamic performance and structural simplicity, a final flap configuration is selected and the performance is validated through the wind tunnel testing for 40% scale model.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.432-441
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• 2016

Solar energy is the ideal power choice for long-endurance stratospheric airships. The output performance of solar array on stratospheric airship is affected by several major factors: flying latitude, flight date, airship's attitude and the temperature of solar cell, but the research on the effect of these factors on output performance is rare. This paper establishes a new simplified analytical model with thermal effects to analyze the output performance of the solar array. This model consisting of the geometric model of stratospheric airship, solar radiation model and incident solar radiation model is developed using MATLAB computer program. Based on this model, the effects of the major factors on the output performance of the solar array are investigated expediently and easily. In the course of the research, the output power of solar array is calculated for five airship's latitudes of $0^{\circ}$, $15^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$, $45^{\circ}$ and $60^{\circ}$, four special dates and different attitudes of five pitch angles and four yaw angles. The effect of these factors on output performance is discussed in detail. The results are helpful for solving the energy problem of the long endurance airship and planning the airline.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.758-766
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• 2010

The design procedure of Solar Power UAVs is complicated because the configuration and required power for flight must be considered simultaneously as the supplied power is influenced by the wing area. In order to minimize trial and error for the Solar Power UAVs design, a systematic sizing method is proposed which can be used to determine whether a Solar Power UAV is feasible for a given mission, and to derive preliminary dimensional specification of it. The sizing procedure begins with initially assumed wing area because the power, lift, and drag of the wing are directly proportional to it. The assumed wing area and mission requirements are then used to determine step by step the airfoil specifications including lift coefficient and drag coefficient, weight, required power, and wing area. This procedure is iterated for each newly assumed wing area until the error between the assumed wing area and calculated wing area becomes significantly small enough. This sizing methodology was applied to previously developed Solar Power UAVs for validation purposes, resulting in good agreement. The methodology was also applied to determine the dimensions and specifications of the Solar Power High-Altitude Long-Endurance UAV.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.551-558
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• 2016

We analyzed wind speed over South Korea for HALE UAV(High Altitude Long Endurance Unmaned Aerial Vehicle) flight safety. Annual variation of wind speed at 200 hPa showed that winter season was stronger than summer. According to latitude, wind speeds in January and August were found to be $52{\sim}74m\;s^{-1}$ and $15{\sim}26m\;s^{-1}$, respectively. Wind speed was stronger(weaker) at lower latitudes than higher latitudes in winter(summer). Frequency(%) of wind speed less than threshold value($18m\;s^{-1}$) for the operation date was investigated. The days showing the frequency greater than 60 % in all altitudes of surface ~ 50 hPa showed the range of 1 ~ 33 days at 7 stations. Operation date was the longest period at Gosan. The appropriate date of HALE UAV operation at Gosan and Osan is considered as the middle of July ~ middle of August and end of July ~ early August, respectively. These results can be used to determine the operation date of HALE UAV.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.396-404
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• 2015

The UAV's wing has high aspect ratio that is suitable for the high altitude and long endurance. Knowing the real-time deformation of wing structure in flight, it can be utilized in structural health and loading status monitoring, improvement of control effectiveness and extraordinary vibration phenomena using displacement-strain relationship. In this paper, nonlinear displacement prediction algorithm was developed for prediction of large structural deflection in flight. The algorithm was validated through the comparison with finite element analysis results and also experimental results for several large tip displacements of cantilever beam. The predicted displacements using strains are agreed well with the measured values from laser displacement sensor.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.129-138
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• 2012

A MDO study of a midium-sized solar powered High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAV has been performed, focused on energy balance. In the MDO process, Vortex Lattice Method(VLM) is employed for the aerodynamic modeling of the vehicle, of which structural weight is estimated with the modeling proposed by Cruz. Tail volume ratios have been set as constants, while the location of tail surfaces is determined from longitudinal static stability criterion. By balancing the available energy from solar cells, battery, and altitude, with the energy-requirement of the vehicle, the possibility of continuous flight over 24-hours has been investigated. The solar radiation level is set as that of summer at the latitude of $36^{\circ}$ north. During the daytime, the aircraft climbs using solar energy, accumulating potential energy, which supplements energy balance during the night. Optimizations have been sought in size of the vehicle, its weight distribution, and flight strategy.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.300-309
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• 2012

Long endurance is a key issue in the application of unmanned aerial vehicles. This study presents feasibility test results when fuel cell system as an alternative to the conventional engine is applied for the power of the UAV after the 150W fuel cell system is developed and packaged to the 1/4 scale super cub airplane. Fuel cell system is operated by dead-end method in the anode part and periodically purged to remove the water droplet in flow field during the operation. Oxygen in the air is supplied to the stack by the two air blowers. And fuel cell stack is water cooled by cooling circuit to dissipate the heat generated during the fuel cell operation. Weight balance is considered to integrate the stack and balance of plant (BOP) in package layout. In flight performance test, we demonstrated 4 times standalone take-off and landing. In the laboratory test simulating the flight condition to quantify the energy flow, the system is analyzed in detail. Sankey diagram shows that electric efficiency of the fuel cell system is 39.2%, heat loss 50.1%, parasitic loss 8.96%, and unreacted purged gas 1.67%, respectively compared to the total hydrogen input energy. Feasibility test results show that fuel cell system is high efficient and appropriate for the power of UAV.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.35-43
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• 2017

Research for solar-powered high altitude long endurance(HALE) UAV was conducted by Korea Aerospace Research Institute(KARI), and the EAV-3 with 19.5m wing span was developed. For HALE flight, aircraft should be lightly designed. Especially, airframe structure that accounts for a large portion of the total weight of aircraft should be lightweight. In this paper, development process of airframe structure for solar-powered HALE UAV, EAV-3, is described briefly. Domestic developed T-800 grade CFRP(Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) composite material with high modulus and strength was used to design main load carrying structures. Flightloads analysis that takes into account large structural deformation was carried out. Stress and flutter analyses for airframe structure sizing were conducted. Static strength test for main wing and aircraft ground vibration test were conducted successfully and structural integrity was secured.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2014

Recent developments for high altitude, long endurance conventional UAVs(HALE UAVs) have revealed new issues regarding aircraft structure design and analysis. First of all, due to intensive mission requirements, the structures of HALE UAVs have lightweight and very flexible main wing with high aspect ratio, and slender fuselage. For this kind of structures, aeroelastic characteristics are different from conventional aircrafts. Hence, currently developed analysis methods are not suitable to fully understand strucutral dynamics of the very flexible aircraft, and to guarantee structural reliability. Therefore, various structural studies considering nonlinear behaviors which are generally ignored for the conventional aircraft strucutral analyis have been attracting researchers interests. Nonlinear flutter of the very flexible wing is one of the subject to be studied in combination with strong coupling between aeroelastic characteristics and flight dynamics. Herein, as preliminary study, modeling and nonlinear system analysis of the 2D airfoild with torsional nonlinearity have been discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.226-231
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• 2013

Recent developments for high altitude, long endurance conventional UAVs (HALE UAVs) have revealed new issues regarding aircraft structure design and analysis. First of all, due to intensive mission requirements, the structures of HALE UAVs have lightweight and very flexible main wing with high aspect ratio, and slender fuselage. For this kind of structures, aeroelastic characteristics are different from conventional aircrafts. Hence, currently developed analysis methods are not suitable to fully understand strucutral dynamics of the very flexible aircraft, and to guarantee structural reliability. Therefore, various structural studies considering nonlinear behaviors which are generally ignored for the conventional aircraft strucutral analyis have been attracting researchers interests. Nonlinear flutter of the very flexible wing is one of the subject to be studied in combination with strong coupling between aeroelastic characteristics and flight dynamics. Herein, as preliminary study, modeling and nonlinear system analysis of the 2D airfoild with torsional nonlinearity have been discussed.