AOE Seminar: Long Endurance Energy Scavenging Aircraft (LEESA)| Speaker | Dr. Boris Berkovski |
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| Institution | |
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| Faculty Host | Dr. Chris Hall |
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| Date & Time | 09.28.2009 04:00pm |
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| Location | 129 McBryde Hall |
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There have been many attempts to create piloted flapping flying vehicles beginning with the early works of Alexander Lippisch - 1929, Boris Cheranovski – 1935-1937, Emiel Hartman – 1959. A recent example is the Flapping Wing Airplane of Professor DeLaurier from Toronto University (1996-2006). However, the first examples of really flying flapping wing gliders were developed in USSR during 1946-1956 in the collective of Oleg Antonov under control of Alexander Manatskov. This period included two stages, the first being 1946-1953, under the auspices of the Alexander Yakovlev Design Bureau in Novosibirsk. Then from 1953- 1956 this continued under the Antonov Design Bureau in Kiev. Based on stage 1 experience, in the second stage years (1953-1956), Manatskov’s Light Aviation Group (GLA) in the Antonov Design Bureau in Kiev, developed an essentially new all-metal flapping wing glider. Unfortunately, in July 1957, with Manatskov’s accidental death during testing of another glider, model A-13 in a series of fixed wing metal gliders (A - 11, A - 13, A - 15), work on flapping wing vehicles was dealt a blow.
There is an unfilled requirement space between the future DARPA Vulture system and current UAVs. Specifically, long-range (30,000 nm+), long-endurance (3 weeks +) vehicles with real payload capacity systems do not yet exist. Lighter than air craft have long endurance, but lack speed. In-service UAVs have the speed, but short endurance. Both have typical payload capacities ≤ 10% of GTOW. A full-scale flapping wing UAV can efficiently fill this niche by capturing and harnessing atmospheric flow energy. We will show that there is credible research and engineering evidence for initiating such a program. LEESA will demonstrate efficient flight with high aerodynamic quality. The flapping wing vehicle is powered through “free” energy, with energy harvested from atmospheric turbulence, stored as compressed air via the motion of the wings while in “glide” mode, and subsequently used as flight is powered via flapping driven by the compressed air motor. Electrical power generation using wing and fuselage mounted solar panels requires minimal additional systems burden.
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