Multipoint Inverse Design Method for an Integrated Tail-Propulsive Propeller in Canard Rotor-Wing UAV

Urban air mobility and emergency response applications demand uncrewed aerial vehicles capable of efficient high-speed cruise, low-speed loiter, and vertical takeoff/landing. The Canard Rotor/Wing (CRW) configuration uniquely integrates these trimodal capabilities. To address thrust deficit during cruise acceleration and parasitic weight penalties in CRW uncrewed aerial vehicle tail rotors, this article proposes an integrated tail-propulsive propeller (ITPP). The ITPP must simultaneously satisfy conflicting aerodynamic requirements: static thrust during hover and high-efficiency thrust generation at high advance ratio. Further, an inverse design methodology is proposed for multipoint operating conditions to satisfy this requirement. The design architecture is an inverse method constructed upon standard strip analysis, implemented in a MATLAB environment with airfoil data computed using the XFOIL solver. The design is guided by the principle of minimum energy loss, and a variable-pitch mechanism is incorporated to mitigate incidence angle conflicts. A critical feature is a radial-position-dependent optimization strategy, which prioritizes drag reduction at the root and tip, and lift-drag tradeoff at mid-span. Aerodynamic data is normalized prior to synthesis to ensure unbiased selection. The final design concurrently achieves high static thrust for low-speed flight and high efficiency at high-speed cruise. Design case studies validate that the dual-point inversely designed propeller simultaneously meets thrust requirements at both design conditions while demonstrating superior overall efficiency relative to single-point reference propellers. The methodology's efficacy in designing propellers for wide-spanning operating conditions is substantiated.