Washington: Soon, the US army will be able to deploy autonomous air vehicles that can change shape during flight.
The US Army has developed a tool that will be used to develop Future Vertical Lift vehicles capable of changing shape during flight, thereby optimising performance of the vehicle through different phases of flight.
Researchers with the US Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory and Texas A&M University published findings of a two-year study in fluid-structure interaction. Their research led to a tool, which will be able to rapidly optimise the structural configuration for Future Vertical Lift vehicles while properly accounting for the interaction between air and the structure.
The new research was presented at the AIAA Aviation Forum and Exposition’s virtual event recently.
Dr Francis Phillips, an aerospace engineer at the laboratory, said, “Consider an [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] mission where the vehicle needs to get quickly to station, or dash, and then attempt to stay on station for as long as possible, or loiter.”
He added: “During dash segments, short wings are desirable in order to go fast and be more maneuverable, but for loiter segments, long wings are desirable in order to enable low power, high endurance flight.”