Sizing and Analysis of Canard-Wing Aircraft with Jet Propulsion

The canard-wing configuration presents an interesting sizing problem as its stability and controllability requirements compete with one another in certain cases. This paper demonstrates the sizing and optimization of a canard-wing configuration with stability and control constraints incorporated explicitly within the vehicle sizing iterations. A semi-empirical aerodynamic model is incorporated within the Parametric Energy-based Aircraft Configuration Evaluator sizing framework, which is driven with a genetic algorithm optimization scheme. Optimization results are presented for both control canard and lifting canard designs. The results demonstrate the successful optimization of both these canard-wing configurations subject to the imposed stability and control constraints.