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The Samarai UAV is a biologically-inspired monocopter, similar in its ight characteristics to the maple seed. It is essentially a single, asymmetric helicopter blade, powered by a tip propeller. Highdelity simulation of such a vehicle is challenging, but of great importance to e cient design. A multi-scale simulation methodology is presented, utilizing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based predictions of the aerodynamic behavior, coupled to the more CPU-e cient blade element and free-wake vortex ring models. The resulting simulation is suitable for engineering analysis and design of monocopters, but nevertheless captures the relevant physical phenomena at low Reynolds number ight regime.
Obradovic et al. (Mon,) studied this question.