Abstract
Aircraft being capable of Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) and hover are increasingly emerging in various critical and routine applications. Rescue missions in roads and environmental disasters, observance and monitoring-based carriers, surveillance and payload carriage in environments that require high maneuverability and controllability are just a few examples in which this type of aircraft is essential. Helicopters are the most typical aircraft in this kind, but concerning the thrusting mechanism, several alternatives are yet in hand. The tendency to equip aircraft with cycloidal rotors (shortly say, cyclorotors) as means of Vertical Take-Off and Landing thrusters has increased in recent years. These devices present several advantages such as considerably lower noise production and more stable hover and vertical displacements in comparison with conventional screw propellers as used in helicopters. In the present work a novel concept of propulsion system combining two cycloidal rotors with a pair-wing system is presented. A double wing assembly is designed to place in between the two cyclorotors on each side of the aircraft. The bottom wing is intended to divide the flow in two separate portions through the downwash region of the front cycloidal rotor. To improve the efficiency of this propulsion system, the implementation of plasma actuators in the pair-wing system will be experimentally studied. The concept behind this novel propulsion system is explained and numerical and experimental results, that support its operation concept, are presented.
