Top 4 Future ways in which Drones will be used in Aerospace Industry

Drones have become an integral part of our lives and will continue to be in the future. With the advent of technology, innovative ways of using drones have come into picture.

They have changed the process of doing any task and have made the operations more efficient which in turn has decreased the workload and production costs whilst improving accuracy.  For example, Facebook to provide internet connection to remote areas by implementing drones. Also corporations like Google and Amazon are testing ways on how they can deliver packages with the help of drones.

Apart from that, many organizations are now looking to capitalize on using drones which would solve the purpose of doing a particular task. From a hobby to military application, here are 4 key ways of using drones which can revolutionize the future of aerospace industry:

Personal Transportation

Although we can say that drones can be defined as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), companies are working on designing autonomous transportation system which will function similar to drones.

In layman language, they can be named as the 'Flying cars'. In May 2019, CityAirbus of "Airbus", a full-scale demonstrator conducted its first take-off which is capable of carrying 4 passengers and cruising at a speed of 120 Km/hr on fixed routes with up to 15 minutes of autonomy.
Its technology of being fully electric and battery powered makes it eco-friendly and the noise from it is almost negligible.

Apart from that companies like Uber, Rolls-Royce and Boeing are working to develop their own autonomous drone vehicles which could serve to ferry the passengers around.
The day is not far when autonomous drone-like taxis will become a norm and carry out the process of commuting in the air in a sustained manner.

Airlines

Every time an airplane lands at an airport, it must undergo routine checks and maintenance should be performed in order to keep the aircraft fly-worthy. There have been instances where delay happens when the maintenance unit takes too long to perform necessary checks.
This ultimately incurs cost to the airline because longer the airplane stays on ground, the parking fees keeps on rising.

In order to reduce the inspection time, drones are the viable solution. Drones outfitted with laser technology and high resolution imagery can be used to inspect the exteriors of an airplane and flag out any potential issue which then would be analysed by the maintenance unit.
This way the overall time of inspection will get reduced by a considerable amount owing to more profits for the airline.

In addition to that an inspection of the entire airport can also be done. Canard-drones is one such startup company looking to implement this.

Space

As we know, drones have already conquered Earth, and in no time they will be sent to outer space for various interplanetary missions. NASA has already announced that they will launch a life-hunting rotor-craft named Dragonfly to Saturn's moon Titan in 2026.
The rotor-craft will be expected to land on Titan in 2034 if everything goes according to plan. This would enable the human civilization to gather huge amount of data and taking numerous pictures of the exotic landscape of Titan.

Before this, NASA intends to accompany a tiny helicopter in the 2020 Mars Rover mission expected to land in 2021 which would aid to gather data about the Red Planet and search for any signs of life.

This would allow us to get a more detailed knowledge about two very different landscapes and perhaps many more in the future. Nevertheless, drones will allow us to go deep into research regarding space exploration.

Internet

As mentioned earlier, Facebook experimented with a solar powered drone called Aquila, which aimed to provide internet access to remote areas. Although Facebook in mid 2018 stopped building their own drones, they intended to depend on other companies to build aircraft.
Apart from that Google sister company X's Project Loon aimed to use large hot air balloons to provide internet access to rural areas.

Similar to Project Loon, there are plans of developing drones that will operate in the stratosphere acting as a "floating-cell tower" which aims to provide access to internet for people in remote areas.
It can also be possible that these drones can act as hot-spots providing internet access to passengers flying.

Although this technology comes with its own advantages and disadvantages, this would surely allow the whole world to remain connected to each other if implemented properly.

Conclusion

It is imminent that by using drones for personal transportation, inspection of aircraft and airports, space exploration and providing internet the aerospace industry will revolutionize.
Reason being, these are sectors where-in there is a huge scope for developing and improving the methods and processes and with drones it will be a stepping stone in such sectors.

How do you think can drones revolutionize the aerospace industry in future? Would love to know from you in the comments!

Aircraft Wing Structure - Ribs, Stringers, Spars Functioning

Just like our body has a skeleton, the complex structure of wings are manufactured in the same way and since wings of an aircraft are responsible for lifting the aircraft off the ground, the wings must adhere to the aerodynamic shape.

So the wing skeleton must be made in such a way so that not only it does not change the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing but also the skeleton is able to provide the required strength in order to withstand different loads in air and/or ground and is able to sustain itself without causing any damage.

Typically the wings of a fixed wing aircraft generally consist of ribs, stringers, spars and skin.

We know that aerofoil is cross section of the wing. The chief component for providing the shape of an aerofoil are the Ribs.

These are structural members which are shaped like an aerofoil, and are responsible for giving the shape to the wing. The ribs are usually made of aluminum alloys, carbon steel and corrosion resisting steel but now these days emphasis is being given on composite material ribs since composite materials have a higher strength to weight ratio. The ribs are placed at small intervals and their numbers depend from wing to wing.

The stringers which are basically a stiffening members and goes through these ribs and are mainly there to transmit the aerodynamic loads. The aerodynamic loads get transmitted from the wing skin or the surface of the wing to the ribs and spars via the stringers.

Spars are the main structural members along the span of the wing. Their role is to take the aerodynamic loads which are imposed on the wings when in air and also support the weight of wings while on ground. Bending loads, drag loads, torsional loads etc. are some loads which this member must hold. For withstanding the loads effectively, 2-3 spars namely the Front Spar, Mid Spar and Rear Spar or just the Front and Rear spar must be placed inside the wing. Following figure shows the placement of the Front and Rear Spar.

The ribs, stringers and spars mainly make up the internal structure of the wing just like different type of bones make up the skeleton. 

To cover the internal structure of the wing, a skin must be put over it to keep the surface smooth which will minimize the drag produced and make the aircraft fuel efficient. The skin is riveted to the rib flanges and longitudinal stiffeners. 

At the leading edge of the wing, the curvature is large. In order to preform the aluminum sheets into correct shape, they are passed through “rolls”. Moreover, for delaying the transition from laminar to turbulent flow in the forward chord-wise section, countersunk rivets are used in these sections as opposed to dome-headed rivets.