Identification of aircraft aerodynamic derivatives based on photogrammetry and computational fluid dynamics

Nowadays, Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) analysis is one of the most affordable techniques to determine the aerodynamic characteristics of an aircraft. It allows a development of advanced flight controllers. However, the accuracy of this technique depends on the input parameters such as the solid model. This paper describes a methodology to estimate aerodynamic derivatives of a Cessna 182 aircraft based on solid model established by using photogrammetry technique. 312 images have been taken using Canon D750 camera with a 24 mm lens. A dense point cloud of the aircraft was generated using MicMac photogrammetry software. Then, the aircraft 3D-geometry was extracted in order to create the CAD model. Afterwards, parameters such as lift and drag coefficients were estimated at different angles of attack using Ansys Fluent software. The simulation results show that the lift and drag increase up to stall angle, then the lift starts to decrease. These results matches the theoretical ones.