Unsteady Airflows and Their Impact on Small Unmanned Air Systems in Urban Environments

Existing unmanned air system platforms currently do not lend themselves well to autonomous operation within complex, highly variable aerodynamic environments. As such, there is a need for accurate high-fidelity urban airflow models to help reduce the risk of failure of urban unmanned air system surveillance and engagement missions. Although urban aerodynamics are exceptionally complicated because of complex interactions between geometry, physical conditions, and varying meteorology, high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics models exist that capture these interactions effectively. Using sufficient resolution, these large-eddy simulation models provide a viable means to characterize urban airflow environments when wind-tunnel testing and field trials are too expensive or impossible. This paper presents a simulation tool that captures unsteady aerodynamics of aircraft flight in an urban environment for the study of vehicle–environment interactions. By combining a high-resolution model of the terrain/buildi...

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