Suprayitno, Malik Abdurrahman, Redyarsa Dharma Bintara, Didin Zakariya Lubis
The propeller is one of the main components in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which is responsible to produce thrust. The objective of this research work was to optimize the thrust force of an existing mini UAV propeller design. The cross-area of propeller edge is an airfoil segment which is ordinarily differing from tip to hub in terms of chord or twist distribution. There are many variables for designing the propeller such as pitch angle, flow angle, chord distribution at the blade span, and twist distribution. Blade elements theory is used for designing the propeller. The blade span was divided into a number of cross-sectional elements and for each section, the cord length and pitch angle were adopted as design variables. A Kriging-genetic algorithm was adopted as the optimization strategy. An existing mini UAV propeller design, DJI Mavic Pro was selected as the initial design. The thrust force was evaluated using the Ansys platform. The optimized propeller design improves thrust force by 35% compared to the initial design. © 2023 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Negeri Malang, Jl. Semarang 5 Malang, 65145, Indonesia
