Flexible Unmanned Arial Vehicles and the Study of Their Special Aeroelasticity

Because of the chase for extraordinary flight performance and the wide application of composite materials, the flexible UAVs have great potential applications and become the hot spots both in research fields and engineering design. Several typical kinds of flexible UAVs and the outstanding issues on aeroelasticity are introduced. Based on the development of flexible UAVs, some key techniques of nonlinear aeroelastic analysis are summarized, including static aeroelasticity, nonlinear flutter, gust response analysis, dynamic rigid/elastic coupling analysis, aeroservoelasticity and the trust coupled aeroelasticity. This paper illustrates the causes, features and feasible solutions of special aeroelastic problems for flexible UAVs, in order to provide valuable references for flexible aircraft design and aeroelastic analysis.