optimization of an Airfoil Characteristics to Minimize the Turn Radius of a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Recently, one of the priorities of the general aviation all around the world is to reduce the environmental hazards of aviation. optimization is the endpoint to be done in order to diminish the difference between energy used and energy supplied for aircraft. These ideas bring some new methods and tools to our mind for aerodynamic shape optimization should be developed and allowing access to aircraft configuration that could not be obtained with ancient techniques. This paper has mainly focused on an application of optimization tool that can reach the advanced aircraft design parameters. This research targets to optimizing an airfoil by changing the parameters such as maximum thickness, camber, camber location, the angle of attack, and the wing taper ratio in order to minimize the turn radius of a small unmanned aerial vehicle at low Reynolds numbers. Firstly, the base airfoil, which is NACA4412, is generated by using MATLAB [1] and it is analyzed in XFOIL. Then, the aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil are evaluated thanks to MATLAB-XFOIL interface. Eventually, the airfoil is optimized by using MATLAB fmincon solvers, which are Sequential Quadratic Programming and Interior-Point Methods. The results-coming from solvers- are compared. During the iterative process, the lift coefficient and the moment coefficient of the airfoil are kept constant. The drag coefficient of the airfoil and the induced drag factor are minimized to minimize the turn radius. This work in this paper may have a certain significance for designing an optimum airfoil in order to minimize the turn radius of an unmanned aerial vehicle.