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Abstract

Since drones cannot fly in any kind of weather, they are not safe for time-sensitive activities. The study examines how the passage of weather systems in Iraq leads to the ban on drone flights, and how these weather conditions impact the aerodynamic forces of the drone. Hourly climate data for the study area were obtained from ECMWF ERA5 and CAMS in NetCDF format for four climate stations (Erbil, Baghdad, Rutbah, and Basrah). A ScanEagle drone was chosen for this study. The Python programming language was used to perform mathematical operations to calculate the ban on drone flights. ArcGIS 10.8 was used to create maps of the spatial distribution of the Python results. 80 ScanEagle flight scenarios were investigated in a wind tunnel simulation using computational fluid dynamics. Ansys 2019 was used to perform the simulation. The results showed that Red Sea and mid-latitude depressions had the most effects on drone flight in Iraq because they increased aerodynamic forces (lift and drag), which in turn increased the power needed for constant speed flight. This resulted in an increase in fuel consumption and flight duration. Red Sea depressions mostly affect the center and southern parts of Iraq; on the other hand, mid-latitude depressions mostly affect the northern and western regions, and when flying at 700 hPa, they affect the entire country.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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