There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Classifications, applications, and design challenges of drones: A review

Proceedings of the fifth annual workshop on Computational learning theory

Nowadays, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are used in many different applications. Using systems of multiple UAVs is the next obvious step in the process of applying this technology for variety of ...

https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/S2301385020500090

Multiple UAV Systems: A Survey

Micro- and nano air vehicles are defined as “extremely small and ultra-lightweight air vehicle systems” with a maximum wingspan length of 15 cm and a weight less than 20 grams. Here, we provide a review of the current state of the art and identify the challenges of design and fabrication. Different configurations are evaluated, such as fixed wings, rotary wings, and flapping wings. The main advantages and drawbacks for each typology are identified and discussed. Special attention is given to rotary-wing vehicles (helicopter concept); including a review of their main structures, such as the airframe, energy storage, controls, and communications systems. In addition, a review of relevant sensors is also included. Examples of existing and future systems are also included. Micro- and nano-vehicles with rotary wings and rechargeable batteries are dominating. The flight times of current systems are typically around 1 hour or less due to the limited energy storage capabilities of the used rechargeable batteries. Fuel cells and ultra capacitors are promising alternative energy supply technologies for the future. Technology improvements, mainly based on micro- and nanotechnologies, are expected to continue in an evolutionary way to improve the capabilities of future micro- and nano air vehicles, giving improved flight times and payload capabilities.

/pdf/micro-and-nano-air-vehicles-state-of-the-art-4bdbqcldt3.pdf

Micro- and Nano-Air Vehicles: State of the Art

This study focus on optimisation of electric propulsion system for a given mission with multiple working conditions. A program called Qpoptimizer is developed and presented which can analyse and couple numerous motors and propellers from databases for a specific mission. It can also design a custom propeller by using the motor and airfoil databases. Qpoptimizer uses Qprop and Qmil opensource propeller analyses and design programs from Mark Drela. Motor and propeller couples are simulated at each predefined working condition and given a score according to their total performance. This methodology ensures the optimisation of the selected motor and propeller couples to be valid and optimum not only for one working condition (for example: cruise condition) but for all of them (take-off,high speed,etc...). Theoretical models and experimental measurements are explained in order to generate the required databases for the existing motors, propellers and airfoils. Finally, an application of the Qpoptimizer program on a real mission is also presented where a custom propeller is optimised according to the weighted mission working conditions.

https://hal-enac.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00993461/document

Multi-Point Optimisation of a Propulsion Set as Applied to a Multi-Tasking MAV

The evolution of cumulus clouds is still no fully understood by atmospheric scientists [1].

Experimental Flights of Adaptive Patterns for Clouds Exploration with UAVs

Investigation of force transients during transverse and vortex gust encounters

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Bioinspired Energy Harvesting from Atmospheric Phenomena for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Nikola Gavrilović, Murat Bronz, Jean-Marc Moschetta

/pdf/bioinspired-energy-harvesting-from-atmospheric-phenomena-for-q1rtkss1hp.pdf

Bioinspired Energy Harvesting from Atmospheric Phenomena for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The work presented in this paper is carried out under the Skycanner project with the aim to study a fleet of coordinated mini-drones that will adaptively sample cumulus-type clouds, over periods of the order of one hour.

https://hal-enac.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01353936/document

Murat Bronz

Papers

Multi-Point Optimisation of a Propulsion Set as Applied to a Multi-Tasking MAV

Experimental Flights of Adaptive Patterns for Clouds Exploration with UAVs

Investigation of force transients during transverse and vortex gust encounters

Bioinspired Energy Harvesting from Atmospheric Phenomena for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Optimal design of long endurance mini UAVs for atmospheric measurement