An Evaluation of Yaw Moment Driven by Rotor-Fuselage Interactions

Multi-rotor drones and/or rotorcraft more generally, are increasing their importance for society. These vehicles are purposed for surveying, deliveries, and more recently, for space exploration. One example is NASA’s Dragonfly mission that involves a science mission to study the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan. For this upcoming mission, we propose to better understand rotor-fuselage aerodynamic coupling using experimental measurements and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). These studies will yield results that can be extrapolated to the large-scale Dragonfly vehicle. The expected results will document: (1) any moments induced due to rotor-fuselage interactions, (2) the effect of different RPMs on the strength of these moments, and (3) the effect an aeroshell will have on these rotor-fuselage interactions. These results will be useful in understanding the complexities associated with flight using multi-rotors.