Wind field study for UAV flight corridor in urban environments

• Main Author: Zeng, Yunxi
• Other Authors: Low Kin Huat
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Fluid mechanics; Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Fluid mechanics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/78820
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As our city becomes smart and intelligent, UAVs are going to be widely used in delivery, traffic monitoring and even man riding. However, due to variable wind direction all year round and complex terrains or architecture in urban environments, the flying UAVs are highly possible crashed by high winds, then they may hurt people and cause property damage. Thus, wind field study for UAV flight corridor could be significantly important. This paper focuses on the wind field around One North, Singapore, using CFD method to simulate the wind velocity and pressure distribution of it in the winter time, and finally identifying the dangerous regions for UAVs. OpenFOAM 4.0 and ParaView are applied to the study as software tools. According to the statistics from NUS geography weather station, the prevailing wind is mainly from northeast and northwest in winter time (from -40° to +40° by north). Correspondingly, it is going to set 9 experiment groups with respect to wind directions from -40° to +40° with 10° interval, with the wind speed of 5m/s. RANS model is applied. After the CFD simulation and post-processing, the velocity and pressure contours of the target wind field are illustrated, and the dangerous regions are identified. Based on that, the UAV operator could plan a safe path for each mission. It is also concluded that northwest wind could arouse greater dangerous regions and a more dispersed distribution than northeast wind. In future work, the LES model will be applied to get better accuracy. For validation, some field experiments of One North are going to be performed. Also, the input wind direction and speed will be set more precise.