Studying the Effect of Wing and Body Geometry on sUAV Aerodynamics in Unpowered Glide Flight

The aerodynamic effects of wing and body geometry variations on small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAVs) during low Reynolds number glide flight are investigated in this study. A motion capture-based approach was employed to extract aerodynamic metrics from flight tests across 22 unique configurations. The geometric variations included aspect ratio, sweep, dihedral, anhedral, taper, and nose shape. Results showed that aerodynamic efficiency, quantified by the Oswald factor, was highly sensitive to even modest changes in geometry. All geometric modifications reduced performance relative to the baseline, though configurations with greater anhedral or more tapered fuselage noses exhibited comparatively improved characteristics. Mild tapering degraded efficiency more than larger tapering, while sweep and dihedral produced the most significant penalties.