Advances in the aerodynamics research of cylcoidal propeller

Cycloidal propeller is a new device composed of two or more blades, which can provide thrust in all directions. It has become a research hotspot in the field of aeronautics research in foreign countries recent years. In this paper, domestic and foreign progress of research on the aerodynamics performance of cycloidal propeller is summarized, which include theoretical analysis, numerical simulation and experiments. It is found that the precision of the current aerodynamic force computation models for cyclorotor are still not enough and cannot be used widely, thus there is need to develop a theoretical model which can consider the dynamic stall, induced drag and downwash effect; and there is little discussion about the mechanism of unsteady aerodynamics of cyclorotor. The numerical analysis method of cyclorotor is still developing and need to be combined with PIV experiments in future to explain the flow mechanism of the cyclorotor. The aerodynamics efficiency of cycloidal propeller is also been discussed, it is found that the conclusions of cycloidal propeller s aerodynamics efficiency in papers are not the same, but the recent experimental data has shown it can be higher than conventional lift device, such as rotor. Finally, some further research topics on the aerodynamics performance are proposed.