SAFE, LOW-NOISE OPERATIONS OF UAM IN URBAN CANYONS VIA INTEGRATION OF GUST OUTCOMES AND TRIM OPTIMIZATION

The requirements that Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles be safe like traditional aircraft, low-noise and closer to carbon neutral than traditional aircraft, and provide vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability have driven designs that use multiple rotors.

These vehicles come in a variety of configurations that indeed appear much quieter compared to traditional single large-rotor vehicles.

However, UAM are expected to operate much closer to population centers on a more continuous basis than traditional aircraft. Furthermore, they will take off and land from rooftops that may be near other taller buildings and then fly in the urban canyon.

The overarching objective of the current research is to address fundamental knowledge gaps related to performance and noise that are critical for enabling UAM operation in an urban setting.

In particular, we explore and develop approaches for predicting noise and performance of multirotor concepts operating in realistic urban flows, with methods validated through experiments employing deterministic disturbances.

The multi-university NASA ULI project also addresses the methods that use noise as a factor for selecting trim conditions, and address the need for path planning that includes desired noise outcomes.

Speaker:

Dr. Vladimir Golubev is a tenured Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Director of Propulsion and Aerodynamics Computational Laboratory (PACL) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL. He received his BS and MS in Applied Mathematics and Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. In 2001, he joined the Aerospace Engineering Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Dr. Golubev’s primary research interests include analytical and high-fidelity numerical analyses of unsteady flow-structure interactions with focus on applications in aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, aeroelasticity, propulsion and flow control. Dr. Golubev authored over 150 refereed journal and conference publications and was a Keynote speaker at several engineering meetings. His research efforts were supported, among others, by NASA, NSF, AFRL, ONR, AFOSR FCAAP, and ULA. He is a RAeS Fellow, AIAA Associate Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and served for many years as NASA and Air Force/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellow.