A Study on Thrust Performance of Counter-Rotating Biomimetic Propeller System for a Manned Drone

In this research, a biomimetic, eagle-wing-type propeller was designed and applied to four pairs of counter-rotating propeller system to provide the necessary payload for a manned drone. The aerodynamic and noise characteristics were identified by model testing and compared with the numerical results using Ansys CFX 19.0 software. The structural analysis were also performed to reinforce the biomimetic blades by modifying the solid profiles near the hub. The aerodynamic performances of the counter-rotating propeller system were measured in terms of thrust forces by changing the distance between two counterrotating propellers and the pitch angle of the lower propeller. Based on the experiment, the best aerodynamic performance was identified at the pitch angle of 5° higher for the downstream propeller than that of upstream one and the non-dimensional distance of 0.3 between two counter-rotating propellers.