Nikola Gavrilovic

Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE) | ISAE · Department of Aerodynamics, Energetics, Propulsion

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-2803.vid This paper presents the second part of flight experiments for a known dynamic soaring trajectory; open-field inclined circle trajectory. Energy extraction through dynamic soaring can improve the range and endurance performance of fixed-wing vehicles on certain missions such as ocean m...

This paper presents flight experiments of dynamic soaring as an inclined circle trajectory on the leeward side of a ridge. Energy extraction through dynamic soaring can improve the range and endurance performance of fixed-wing vehicles on certain missions such as ocean monitoring, or flying over orographic wind sources. Real-life application of aut...

This Paper discusses energy harvesting from atmospheric phenomena for small unmanned aerial vehicles, theoretically through simulations and practically through experimental flights. A comparison between different scenarios for flight within the sinusoidal wind profile is presented. A significant improvement in performance with active control of com...

The design of a long-range unmanned aircraft system powered by fuel cells is investigated, with the study focusing on the feasibility of crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The motivation behind this aircraft is to demonstrate the capability of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative fuel source and to create a case for future commercial and civilian aircra...

This paper discusses energy-harvesting from atmospheric turbulence for small unmanned aerial vehicles, theoretically through simulations and practically through experimental flights. A comparison between different scenarios for flight within sinusoidal wind profile is presented. A significant improvement in performance with active control of elevat...

Fixed-wing small, unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAVs) usually fly in atmospheric boundary layers that are often under the influence of turbulent environments. Inspired by nature's flyers, an application of an energy-harvesting flight strategy for increasing the energy state of the aircraft is presented. This paper provides basic longitudinal flight dy...

One of the major challenges of Mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle flight is the unsteady interaction with turbulent environment while flying in lower levels of atmospheric boundary layer. Following inspiration from nature we expose a new system for angle of attack estimation based on pressure measurements on the wing. Such an equipment can be used for re...

Fixed-wing miniature aerial vehicles usually fly at low altitudes that are often exposed to turbulent environments. Gust soaring is a flight technique of energy harvesting in such a complex and stochastic domain. The presented work shows the feasibility and benefits of exploiting a nonstationary environment for a small unmanned aerial vehicle. A lo...

Fixed-wing mini aerial vehicles usually fly at low altitudes often exposed to turbulent environments. Due to limited size, mini UAVs are being constrained with capacity of carrying payload and degraded performance due to low-Re flight. Energy harvesting from atmospheric turbulence represents an opportunity for small UAVs to enhance their performanc...

One of the major challenges of Mini-UAV flight is unsteady interaction with turbulent environment while flying in lower levels of atmospheric boundary layer. Following inspiration from nature we expose a new system for angle of attack estimation based on pressure measurements on the wing. Such an equipment can be used for real-time estimation of th...

The work presented in this paper is carried out under the Skyscanner 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. One of the objectives of this project is to optimise the design of long endurance mini UAVs for use in atmospheric research. For...

Aerodynamic drag force breakdown of a typical transport aircraft shows that lift-induced drag can amount to as much as 40% of total drag at cruise conditions and 80-90% of the total drag in take-off configuration. One way of reducing lift-induced drag is by using wing-tip devices. By applying several types of winglets, which are already used on com...