Main Objectives and additional criteria in the design of a new low altitude UAV

The paper presents some activities concerning results and new initiatives on the UAV theme in progress at the Department of Aeronautical Engineering (DPA) of University of Naples During last five years the authors' research group gained experience in the realization of a small advanced composite unmanned aircraft named Federica. Moreover DPA is involved in a European Community funded project, USICO (Uav Safety Issues for Civil Operations). The continuous evolution of military and civil environments, the new emerging requirements issued by the potential users and the coming regulations have induced the research group, together with other national and international organizations to develop a new project of small, low altitude UAV. Many potential UAV users are looking for a remote operating system able to monitor in a range of few kilometres at moderate altitudes. The possibility of such remote monitoring can be performed by small, low cost UAV, with simplified operational characteristics in both civil and military environment. The preliminary development of a new low altitude UAV will be presented in the paper. Advanced composites are used for the primary structure of the aircraft. The system is characterized by remote control capabilities and some automatic functions implemented to increase the safety in critical conditions. The following aspects in the project need to be pointed out: • Aircraft design with advanced material and innovative technologies needs to be supported by a relevant experimental work and numerical simulation; • The design phases that will be carried on have been selected according to traditional standards for general aviation aircraft; • Most of the systems are derived from other application fields in order to reduce production and operational costs and to allow a simple feature improvement. Copyright © 2004 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc