Co-Optimization of Blunt Body Shapes for Moving Vehicles

The parametric modeling system allows for the integrated design and optimization of aerospace vehicles by unifying physical and control subsystems within a single computational model. The system includes representations of the vehicle’s geometry, structural load, propulsion, energy storage, and GNC systems. The system performs sensitivity analysis on key performance metrics (e.g., fuel consumption, heat load, and mechanical forces) to determine how changes in design parameters affect overall performance. By incorporating real-world conditions, such as wind variations and sensor noise, the system allows for the use of real-time feedback to refine vehicle designs. The optimization process uses a gradient-based algorithm to iteratively adjust parameters so that constraints such as structural integrity, thermal protection, and fuel capacity are met. The system generates a Pareto front representing trade-offs between performance metrics that allow engineers to visualize optimal designs for different mission profiles, which enhances design accuracy while reducing the need for expensive physical testing.

The disclosed technology provides a multistage system for evaluating the free-flight behavior of test articles across of the supersonic, transonic, and subsonic regimes. First, a drop platform is lifted to high altitudes using a lifting device, such as a stratospheric balloon. The drop platform houses multiple projectiles, each containing an ejection mechanism, an on-board avionics suit, and an instrumented test article. Upon reaching the target altitude via the lifting device, the drop platform releases the projectiles sequentially. Each projectile accelerates to a target speed and altitude before ejecting its test article into the freestream. The test articles, such as a scaled re-entry capsule, then collect flight data during their descent through the various Mach regimes, providing valuable insights into their flight performance under mission-relevant conditions. This innovative testing system offers several benefits. It enables the simultaneous testing of multiple vehicles, facilitating the evaluation of design variations as well as statistical analyses of vehicle behavior. This system also provides significant cost savings in comparison to other state-of-the-art testing methods, such as ballistic range testing. Additionally, the test articles within each projectile are easily interchangeable through a simple, modular change of a support surface in the ejection mechanism. This flexibility enables the system to accommodate a range of other aerodynamic technologies, including other vehicles, parachutes, propulsion systems, and defense technologies. This system can enhance the efficiency and robustness of reentry vehicle design, testing, and simulation operations through the collection of rich, flight-relevant data.

This invention, developed under the Rotor Optimization for the Advancement of Mars eXploration (ROAMX) project, provides a method for optimizing airfoil geometries for aerial flight vehicles generally, and can also specifically optimize airfoil geometries for operating in Martian or other low Reynolds number environments. The method introduces a new “ROAMX parameterization” that defines geometric constraints, such as camber node count and the number and order of Bézier curve segments, to generate candidate airfoil shapes. A genetic algorithm evaluates these shapes against multiple objectives and iteratively selects the best-performing designs, converging on a Pareto-optimal front. This enables simultaneous optimization of metrics such as maximizing lift and minimizing drag. Using the ROAMX 1301 parameterization, the method produced an airfoil with lift to drag ratio improvements of up to 42% over the outboard airfoil used on the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, representing a significant performance gain.

For rapid parachute deployment simulation, the framework and methodology provided by the simulation database uses parametrized aerodynamic data for a variety of environmental conditions, air taxi design parameters, and landing system designs. The database also includes a compilation of drag coefficients, thrust and lift forces, and further relevant aerodynamic parameters utilized in the simulated flight of a proposed air taxi. The database and framework can be constructed using simulated data that accounts for oscillatory breathing of parachutes. The methodology can further employ an overset grid of body-fitted meshes to accurately capture deployment of an internally-stored parachute, as well as descent of the air taxi and deployed parachute. The systems and methods of the disclosed technology can be utilized with existing CFD solvers in a plug-and-play manner, such that the framework can be integrated to directly improve the performance of these solvers and the machines on which they are installed. The framework itself can employ parallelization to enable distributed solution of intensive CFD simulations to build a robust database of simulated data. Further, as up to 90% of computational time is spent in the calculation of aerodynamic parameters for use in coupled trajectory equations, the framework can significantly reduce the computational costs and design time for safe landing systems for air taxis. These reductions can lead to lower costs for design processes, while enabling rapid design and testing prior to physical prototyping.

This technique injects precisely defined stationary transient growth disturbances into the free air slipstream over a wing that develop into streamwise elongated "streaks." These streaks are created with an alternating pattern of low and high streamwise velocity in the boundary layer flow adjacent to the aerodynamic surface of interest. Judicious selection of streak wavelength, amplitude, and profile allows the first-mode instability waves responsible for transition via oblique mode breakdown to be damped while the remaining, uncontrolled waves are kept below an amplification threshold. A similar control concept is also applicable to second mode transition at hypersonic Mach numbers.