Optimization of a Biplane Micro Air Vehicle

The present paper addresses the problem of improving the aerodynamics performances of a fixed-wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) under stringent maximum size constraints. Monoplane wing planforms are compared with biplane concepts using low-speed wind tunnel measurements and numerical calculations including viscous effects. A parametric study of the effect of various geometrical parameters has been carried out in order to optimize a biplane micro-air vehicle configuration in the low-Reynolds regime. Finally, wind-tunnel measurements including the influence of propellers indicate that biplane MAV configurations can drastically increase the overall performances over the classical monoplane fixed-wing concept.