Drone Design and Development

This Section focuses on Drone Design and Development. This includes research efforts related to the modeling, flight dynamics, design, mission, and manufacturing of various sizes of drones, such as unmanned air vehicles (UAV), micro-unmanned air vehicles (μUAV), micro air vehicles (MAV), and nano air vehicles (NAV). Additionally, different types of drones, including fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and flapping-wing systems, are targeted in this Section. Furthermore, various environments where drones can be deployed are considered, such as aerial, underwater, marine, and space. Modeling, analysis, and discussions on the bioinspiration and biomimicry side of drones are also appreciated in order to better understand the locomotion of biological systems and their effectiveness. To reach optimal efficiency and endurance, aerodynamic, structural, fluid–structure interaction modeling should be performed analytically, numerically, or experimentally. This Section is established to introduce new concepts, modeling and control strategies, and effective designs of drones in addition to understanding all the relevant aspects of drone development, stability, and manufacturing. The scope of this Section is to publish articles on the current state-of-the-art research, recent research, and future directions for drone design and development.

Keywords

• UAV/ μUAV/MAV/NAV
• Fixed-wing/rotary-wing/flapping-wing drones
• Space/marine/aerial/underwater drones
• Novel bio-inspired drone design and development
• Soft robotics and multimodal locomotion
• Bioinspiration and biomimicry
• Fluid–structure interaction/aeroelasticity/hydroelasticity
• Nonlinear flight dynamics and control
• Optimal and effective design
• Drone development, stability, and manufacturing
• Actuation mechanism design