Calculating Aerodynamic & Stability Characteristics For Small fixed-wing UAVs based on Digital DATCOM

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Military Technical College, Egypt.

10.21608/iugrc.2022.303029

Abstract

UAV importance has increased especially nowadays and of course building an accurate model for the design is essential for accurate results and good control for UAVs. The model we build here is an aerodynamic model to calculate aerodynamic coefficients that are used to calculate forces acting on the vehicle to control the vehicle. Creating a model for calculating aerodynamic coefficients can be made by many methods. The method we used for building a model in this paper is DATCOM can be immensely confusing. There are no point-and-click interfaces here, only points in space. This tutorial aims at helping the novice user build a simple DATCOM model and test it. The numbers obtained may not be correct, but the model should be fairly accurate (except for a few assumptions). Digital Datcom calculates static stability, high-lift, control device, and dynamic-derivative characteristics. The computer program also offers a trim option that computes control deflections and aerodynamic data for vehicle trim at subsonic Mach numbers.

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