Wing Development Background ILC’s work with airships and aerostats led us to apply inflatable technology to UAV’s in the 1970’s – an idea that was ahead of its time. Advances in payloads and mission operations have recently revitalized this work.

Deployable Wing Basics
Inflatable wings are engineered textile and membrane structures that are deployed and supported by inflation pressure. Their structure, layout, inflated sectional moment of inertia and inflation pressures are tailored to their loading application and flight characteristics. Inflatable rigidizable composite wings that do not require sustained inflation pressure after deployment and rigidization have also been developed.

Inflatable wings have various benefits that satisfy a broad spectrum of needs:

• High packing efficiency
  
• Low deployment times
  
• Low mass
  
• Durable and survivable
  
• Easily tailored designs
  
• Low production costs, disposable solutions
  
• Low development costs (no tooling)

Inflatable wings are scalable and reconfigurable to fit a wide range of applications from small gun-launched munitions to large High Altitude Long Endurance vehicles.

• Backpack UAV
  

  Low re-packable volume and mass for easy transportation and hand-pump deployable in the field with the benefit of resiliency for surviving crashes and mishaps in volatile environments

• Munitions
  

  Wings and fins for guidance, stabilization or increased flight time that can be rapidly deployed at high velocities by either air-drop or gun-launch

• Hunter/Killer UAV
  

  Disposable/retractable morphing capability added to rigid UAV wings to increase wing performance for different flight regimes such as inflatable wingtip extensions for loitering

• High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAV
  

  Packable high AR and L/D wings for ease of mobility and deployment/launch options

• Mars Aircraft
  

  Low packing volume and mass and high-G loading survivability for space transportation and rigidizable technology to remove necessity for sustained inflation

In conjunction with various industry, government and academic partners, ILC has performed a significant amount of testing and development work to quantify and expand the performance range of inflatable/deployable wings.

Design and Development

• Wing Design and Patterning
  
• Material Selection and Development
  
• Loading Analysis
  
• Manufacturing / Assembly
  
• Inflation Systems
  
• Volume / Mass Optimization
  
• Prototyping

Testing

• Material and Seaming
  
• Bending Rigidity
  
• Torsional Rigidity
  
• Aeroelastic Characteristics
  
• Packing Configurations
  
• Deployments
  
• Wind Tunnel Performance
  
• Flight Testing
  
• High Altitude Deployment/Rigidization

 

Technical Papers