Design parameters for military tactical surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle in tropical countries

• Main Author: Omar, Mohd suhaimi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2025
• Subjects: T Technology; TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/29439/

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be defined as an aircraft that operates and controls without requiring human intervention. The development stage of UAVs, however, differs depending on their particular use in each respective industry and the environmental conditions. In tropical countries, many factors and critical design parameters must be taken into consideration, especially in relation to the challenges posed by high humidity, strong crosswinds and fluctuating temperatures to ensure UAVs operate effectively and meet flight requirements. There are multiple phases in developing a UAVs, which include the design, material selection, system and flight test. The objective of this study is to investigate the essential components of UAVs design parameter specifically for military applications, to analyse the technical requirements of UAVs components by applying analytical hierarchy process and quality function deployment and to verify the performance of UAVs system by conducting flight test with the defined technical requirements and design parameter. The method used was Analytical Hierarchy Process and Quality Function Deployment. Some other method such as focus group discussion, semi structured interview, field observation and document review contributed to this research activities. Opinions and suggestion by all experts in Company XYZ were taken into consideration when the selection process for the design, material, component and test was made. This research succeeded in fulfilling the objectives as the selection had been made to figure out the best development of a UAVs. From this study, the weight of components and structured were set at 120kg which made it a successful development to reduce the maximum take-off weight from 150kg to 120kg. By comparing the aerofoil in terms of its aerodynamic performance, structural integrity, payload capacity, environmental consideration and manufacturability, the selected aero foil was RONCZ1046 as it scored higher than SD7062 and NACA0012.In addition, carbon fibre for wing structure and propellor, fiberglass composite for tail and body of UAVs were selected as the structures’ material after its aerodynamic efficiency, lightweight, strength and fatigue resistance had been analysed. Meanwhile engine selected was Engine LMN compared to other engines such as Engine ABC and Engine PQR as it offered the most powerful performance, efficiency, reliability and affordable cost. The battery selected was Li-Ion while the RC test that was selected were used to verify the integration and development of the new UAVs as it analysed how the system works, the communication between UAVs and operators and the smoothness of flight. This study allowed future development of UAVs in tropical countries to be done easily with this research on design, material, engine and flight test as its benchmark.