A RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Aerodynamic Design and Analysis of Medical Delivery Drone
Aerodynamic Design and Analysis of Medical Delivery Drone in
Nepal
Introduction
UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) is an aircraft without pilot on board. The needs and applications
of UAV is escalating in recent years across many civil application domains, including real-time
monitoring, providing wireless coverage, remote sensing, search and rescue, delivery of goods,
security and surveillance, precision agriculture, and civil infrastructure inspection.
Problem Statement
The health condition in Nepal is still poor. The mortality rate is high due to malnutrition, lack of
health services and improper hygiene. The road condition is worse and they are frequently
blocked by natural disasters like flood, landslide, etc. So, this causes less supply of indispensable
medicines and other goods to those areas.
Objectives
To supply necessary medical equipment like vaccines, blood, medicines etc to remote
areas.
To deliver 3kg medical goods in a range of 50km quickly and safely.
Hence, in order to facilitate with the medical facilities to the local health posts as well as
hospitals in the remote places of Nepal, we aim to provide a quick and efficient medical kit
delivery system with the aid of UAVs.
Specification
The proposed drone will be tilt rotor which is a combination of plane and multi-copter with the
capacity of an instant transition between flight modes. This drone will be capable of reaching the
targeted destination and returning to its original position autonomously. To achieve this, single or
multiple GPS coordinates will be set into the micro-controller at each flight before take-off on
the basis of the path required to complete that mission. Electric motors will be used as main
propulsion component.
Weight (including 3kg payload) 12 kg
Speed 90 km/hr
Range 50 km
Altitude ( From ground) 3-5 km
Flight Endurance 30 min
Note: The data mentioned above is a rough estimate and might be altered as per the design.
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Methodology
The initial or preliminary design of UAV will be done in OpenVSP software and XFLR5
considering the aerodynamic as well as stability analysis. The final CAD model will be
modeled in CATIA software.
Various parameters of aerodynamic analysis will be derived from preliminary design
softwares as mentioned and exported to MATLAB to perform the flight analysis using
SIMULINK and Flight Gear in order to analyze the flight and stability of the designed
model.
The flow simulation of the designed model will be performed in OpenFOAM for the
detailed visualization and analysis of the flow around the model. And, structure analysis
will be done in Ansys.
Airfoil selection MAX (L/D) RATIO
DESIGN
OpenVSP
CAD MODEL STABILITY
CATIA XFLR-5
MESH GENERATION
Pointwise
CFD ANALYSIS
OpenFOAM
Data Processing
and visualization
FLIGHT DYNAMICS MODEL
MATLAB &
SIMULINK
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Hence, Conceptual design is obtained this way from the preliminary design.
Schedule
This project is scheduled to be accomplished by the end of November,2020.
Future Insights
After the design is finalized, the actual model will be made. The model will be equipped with
RGB camera and LIDAR for remote sensing, terrain mapping and different datas about the
landslide, forest fire and deforestation can also be acquired.
Conclusions
This project expands the usefulness of UAV technology by making it more aerodynamically
efficient, automated and lowering the cost barrier. It will require a high degree of planning in
order to ensure the aerodynamic capability, weight and power limitations are met. It includes a
high degree of aeronautical engineering content, and allows our team to apply the skills we have
acquired during our time as an Aerospace Engineering students. Because of these things, we
believe this will be an excellent capstone design project. And, we hope this project will play vital
role in improving health status of Nepal.
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