Unauthorized flights of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) pose significant threats to both aircraft operational safety and public security. Launching projectiles via compressed gas devices has emerged as an effective hard-kill approach for UAV countermeasures, the efficiency and accuracy of which critically depend on high-precision flight prediction. This paper proposes a methodology for modeling the aerodynamic parameters of grooved projectiles. Specifically, six-degree-of-freedom equations are derived within a zero-wind reference frame, and a multi-wind separate calculation scheme is developed. Based on this framework, a high-precision flight prediction workflow is established. Aerodynamic modeling and flight trajectory simulations are conducted for three projectile configurations: un-grooved, rectangular-grooved, and polygonal-grooved. The results demonstrate that grooved projectiles improve axial flow characteristics in the boat-tail region and suppress the development of vortical structures in the radial cross section, thereby offering advantages in reducing flow losses and drag. These findings underscore the efficacy of groove-based flow control, with the polygonal-grooved configuration outperforming its rectangular-grooved counterpart. Notably, the aerodynamic parameters and flight characteristics of both grooved projectile types differ substantially from those of the un-grooved projectile, indicating that surface grooves exert a considerable influence on aerodynamic behavior—a factor that must be duly accounted for in aerodynamic modeling. Among the grooved variants, the polygonal-grooved projectile exhibits superior performance, characterized by a lower drag coefficient, extended supersonic flight range, enhanced wind resistance, and reduced dispersion.
Zhang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.