Investigating Errors Observed during UAV-Based Vertical Measurements Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
Investigating Errors Observed during UAV-Based Vertical Measurements Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
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DOI：
10.3390/drones6090253
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发表时间：
2022-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Saad, Tony
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hedworth, Hayden;Page, Jeffrey;Saad, Tony
无人机(UAV)是一种流行的空气质量测量平台。对于垂直测量，旋转翼无人机特别适合。然而，旋翼无人机的一个重要问题是旋翼下洗如何影响测量精度。最近一次野外战役的测量显示，上升和下降的数据之间存在显著差异，这表明无人机下洗可能是原因。为了研究和解释这些观察到的差异，我们使用高保真计算流体力学(CFD)模拟来模拟无人机垂直飞行过程。我们使用示踪剂来模拟气体污染物，并评估旋翼下洗对无人机周围浓度的影响。我们的结果表明，在梯度测量时，基于无人机的测量类似于在下降过程中比预期浓度高50%，但在上升过程中是准确的，无论传感器的位置如何。这些结果为垂直测量过程中遇到的误差提供了解释，并为未来研究中准确的数据收集方法提供了见解。
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are a popular platform for air quality measurements. For vertical measurements, rotary-wing UAVs are particularly well-suited. However, an important concern with rotary-wing UAVs is how the rotor-downwash affects measurement accuracy. Measurements from a recent field campaign showed notable discrepancies between data from ascent and descent, which suggested the UAV downwash may be the cause. To investigate and explain these observed discrepancies, we use high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to simulate a UAV during vertical flight. We use a tracer to model a gaseous pollutant and evaluate the impact of the rotor-downwash on the concentration around the UAV. Our results indicate that, when measuring in a gradient, UAV-based measurements were similar to 50% greater than the expected concentration during descent, but they were accurate during ascent, regardless of the location of the sensor. These results provide an explanation for errors encountered during vertical measurements and provide insight for accurate data collection methods in future studies.