Strategy for Reducing Raindrop Impact on Maneuverability of Micro-UAV

Owing to their small size and light weight, Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Micro-UAVs) are vulnerable to environmental conditions like rain, which can destabilize them when raindrops hit the blades. We construct superhydrophobic surfaces with varying rotation and tilt and investigate ways to reduce raindrop influence on drones by comparing contact time and maximum spreading diameter. The Volume of Fluid (VOF) method reveals that tilting and rotating surfaces create an asymmetrical flow field and negative pressure area inside the droplet during retraction, causing contact time to shorten by 20% and maximum spreading diameter to decrease by 15% at most. Through energy analysis, the function of the impact influence is obtained with the variation of rotation speed and tilt angle, revealing that tilting [Formula: see text] is more effective than a rotating speed of 6000 rpm in diminishing the influence. Particularly in heavy rain this can maximally reduce the influence by up to 30%, thereby offering better protection for the stability of micro-UAVs.