Development of an Accurate Simulation Environment for Airborne Vehicles on Venus
Abstract
Models and direct observation of the atmosphere of Venus have shown that the environment above the cloud layer is incredibly dynamic. Given that the upper level of the atmosphere circles the planet roughly every 90 hours, any vehicle designed to be deployed to operate in the proposed 50 to 60 km region will either need to have sufficient battery capacity to continue functioning while traveling around the dark side of the planet, expend a large amount of energy to maintain position on the sun lit side, or make use of alternative methods to provide propulsive power to the system. Fortunately, the rapid movement of the atmosphere also creates locations conducive to energy harvesting. These ideal environments for the use of soaring techniques provide not only energy to maintain altitude, but sufficient wind-relative velocity to navigate to desired global locations. Strong upward winds exist near the low latitudes that create vertical movement of the atmosphere. Additionally, large areas of the atmosphere on Venus contain characteristically high wind shear, particularly at the cloud interface. Unfortunately, the development of such a vehicle concept is difficult as there are very limited resources regarding aircraft-scale simulations of the Venus atmosphere. On a large scale, sophisticated GCMs now exist for Venus' atmosphere that can produce detailed predictions of the winds, thermodynamics, chemistry, photochemistry, and other atmospheric properties at all altitudes, latitudes, longitudes, and local times of day. We have been collaborating with Dr. Sebastien Lebonnois at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique on using his GCM output to model atmospheric variables relevant for flight. This presentation details the development of a simulation environment that can make use of the GCM output to test various complexities of atmospheric flight including dynamic soaring algorithms. It has been designed to accommodate the inclusion of various vehicles, small scale atmospheric, and sensor models, as well as to tie in directly to the output from the GCM for information about the thermodynamics of the local environment. It is envisioned that such a simulation could be extended to cover development of atmospheric vehicles for other locations including Mars or Titan.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.P11E3491B
- Keywords:
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- 5405 Atmospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS;
- 5410 Composition;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS;
- 5455 Origin and evolution;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS;
- 5494 Instruments and techniques;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS