Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Atmospheric Turbulence Measurement

115 Pages·2016·24.71 MB·English

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Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical
Mechanical Engineering
Engineering
2016
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Brandon M. Witte
University of Kentucky, [email protected]
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2016.404
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Witte, Brandon M., "Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Atmospheric Turbulence
Measurement" (2016). Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering. 82.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/me_etds/82
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Brandon M. Witte, Student
Dr. Sean C. C. Bailey, Major Professor
Dr. Haluk Karaca, Director of Graduate Studies
Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
for Atmospheric Turbulence Measurement
THESIS
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Science in
Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering
at the University of Kentucky
by
Brandon M. Witte
University of Kentucky
Director: Dr. Sean C. C. Bailey, Associate Professor of Mechanical
Engineering
Lexington, Kentucky
2016
Copyright (cid:13)c Brandon M. Witte 2016
ABSTRACT OF THESIS
Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
for Atmospheric Turbulence Measurement
An unmanned aerial vehicle was developed to study turbulence in the atmospheric
boundary layer. The development of the aircraft, BLUECAT5, and instrumentation
package culminated in a series of flight experiments conducted in two different loca-
tions near Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. The flight experiments employed the use of
two of the unmanned aerial vehicles flying simultaneously, each containing a five-hole
pressure probe as part of a turbulence-measuring instrumentation package. A total
of 18 flights were completed with the objective to measure atmospheric properties at
five altitudes between 20 and 120 meters. Multiple flights were flown over two days in
which the effects of the diurnal cycle on the boundary layer were investigated. Pro-
files for mean wind velocity, temperature, and humidity all follow expected boundary
layer behavior throughout the day. Evolution of the boundary layer can be seen with
the early morning, stable boundary layer identified and its transition to the early
mid-day convective mixed boundary layer observed. The corresponding increase in
turbulence intensity was found to be significant. The success of the test campaign
demonstrated the ability of the developed unmanned system to measure turbulence
in the atmospheric boundary layer.
KEYWORDS: Atmospheric boundary layer, Turbulence, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle,
Five-hole probe, Hot-wire anemometry
Brandon M. Witte
October 20, 2016
Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
for Atmospheric Turbulence Measurement
by
Brandon M. Witte
Dr. Sean C. C. Bailey
Director of Thesis
Dr. Haluk Karaca,
Director of Graduate Studies
October 20, 2016
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Bailey, for the continuous support and
guidance he has given me over the past few years. He has provided me with countless
opportunities and spent a tremendous amount of time and effort helping me become
the student and researcher I am today. It has been a pleasure working with him.
Iwouldalsoliketothankmyparents, whohaveprovidedenormoussupporttowards
me and my dreams throughout my life. They have been a huge inspiration during
this journey and I cannot thank them enough for everything they’ve done for me.
I am grateful for everyone I have worked with over the past 3 years. To everyone
that is currently working in the UAV lab Ryan Nolin, Caleb Canter, Rob Singler,
Jonathan Hamilton, and Colby Borchetta you all have been a tremendous help and
it’s been great working with you. In addition I’d like to specifically thank Cornelia
Schlagenhauf for the tremendous amount of help in the five-hole probe development
in instrumentation. Her work was essential to the progress of this work.
I would like to extend my gratitude to Mike Thamann for his guidance and will-
ingness to teach me as I began my research as a grad student. His knowledge and
expertise was vital to the development of my know-how and skills within the UAV
lab.
Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the National Science Foundation who finan-
cially supported my work through grant #CBET-1351411 and award #1539070, Col-
laboration Leading Operational UAS Development for Meteorology and Atmospheric
Physics (CLOUDMAP).
iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments iii
List of Figures vii
List of Tables x
Nomenclature xi
1 Introduction 1
2 Background 5
2.1 Turbulence Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Boundary Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Techniques to Measure Atmospheric Turbulence . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Data Reduction 18
4 Early Aircraft Development 23
4.1 BLUECAT3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 BLUECAT4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3 Preliminary Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4 Preliminary Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5 Aircraft and Instrumentation Package Development 33
5.1 BLUECAT5 Airframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
iv
5.2 Autopilot and Inertial Navigation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.3 Pitot-static tube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.4 Launcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.5 Turbulence Measurement System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.5.1 Five-hole Probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.5.2 Temperature and Humidity Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.5.3 Data Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.6 Sonic Anemometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.7 Measurement Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.7.1 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.7.2 Wednesday, June 29, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.8 Implementation of Data Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6 Results 58
6.1 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.1.1 Mean Wind Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.1.2 Potential Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.1.3 Humidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.1.4 Turbulence Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6.2 Wednesday, June 29, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.2.1 Mean Wind Speed and Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2.2 Potential Temperature and Humidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.2.3 Turbulence Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7 Conclusions and Future Work 78
Appendices 81
A Five-hole Probe Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
B Instrumentation Measurement Procedure Checklist . . . . . . . . . . 85
v
C Reynolds Stress Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
C.1 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
C.2 Wednesday, June 29, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Bibliography 93
Vita 99
vi
List of Figures
2.1 Illustration of two dimensional turbulence kinetic energy spectra at
various Reynolds numbers, courtesy of Dr. Sean C. Bailey. . . . . . . 8
2.2 Atmospheric boundary layer structure evolution through the diurnal
cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1 Standard airplane body axes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.1 BLUECAT3 airframe equipped with hot-wire instrumentation. . . . . 24
4.2 BLUECAT4 multi-rotor equipped with hot-wire instrumentation. . . 26
4.3 BLUECAT3 nose cone in wind tunnel during wind tunnel tests for
BLUECAT3 instrumentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.4 Pre-multiplied power spectrum at varied sensor location. . . . . . . . 29
4.5 BLUECAT4 flow visualization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.6 Flight path for BLUECAT3 preliminary measurements . . . . . . . . 30
4.7 Power spectrum from BLUECAT3 preliminary test flight. . . . . . . . 31
4.8 Power spectrum from BLUECAT4 preliminary test flight. . . . . . . . 31
5.1 BLUECAT5 Launcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.2 Diagram illustrating BLUECAT5 instrumentation connections . . . . 41
5.3 BLUECAT5 instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.4 Five-hole probe pressure port locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.5 Dimensionless calibration coefficients C vs. C showing nonlinearities
α β
for larger airflow angles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
vii