Rotary Wing UAV pre-sizing : Past and Present Methodological Approaches at Onera

Thanks to their Vertical Take-Off and Landing, hover and low speed capabilities rotorcraft have a wide variety of applications. A very wide range of rotorcraft concepts have been invented and creativity is still abundantly present, especially in the field of Rotary Wing Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles. First, some typical past studies requiring RWUAV pre-sizing will be described. They were pragmatically dealt with using the means available at that time. The interest as well as the limits of these studies contributed to pushing Onera in the development of a dedicated tool for rotorcraft evaluation and pre-sizing with the most ad hoc models and methods. The second part of the paper will present the main lines of the current methodological approach built in the CREATION project: “Concepts of Rotorcraft Enhanced Assessment Through Integrated Optimization Network”. Then, some evolution perspectives of this numerical platform will be given, to better address especially the RW-UAVs pre-sizing.