Conceptual Design of Loiter Munition UAV

Abstract

The concept of UAV is popping out of the box in defense technology. The use of Loitering Munitions has given the military a cutting edge in warfare tactics. From the most advanced nations to the least emerged nations, all have employed the services of the UAV/UCAV. Today, India is actively buying this technology from developed nations like the US and advanced technologies of UAVs from Israel. This indicates the lack of indigenous technology or very limited research centers looking into the development of the concept of UAV for the military. This is because the largest workforce of minds in the nation- the students and researchers are not entirely looking into this concept. Thus, this work is an attempt to fill the gap of such necessities through the conceptualdesign of an LM-UAV using variousdesign calculations and verifying the design by CFD analysis. A Loitering Munition is a type of UAV that itself acts as a weapon and hits the target when the target is in sight,after waiting passively or loitering in the area nearby. The first estimates obtained from the literature review, are used as initial design parameters once the discussions regarding the design in OpenVSP software aretaken into context. The Fluent flow analysis using Ansys for cruise flight at a particular altitude is done to obtain the lift force generation on the designed UAV and compare it with the theoretically calculated lift force. This work can be used as a source of reliable information for the development of UAVs or other works related to the design and development of UAVs.