Aerodynamics-driven monoplane-biplane morphing aircraft

A high-aspect-ratio wing is the key to improving the lift-to-drag ratio of an aircraft. However, a high-aspect-ratio wing leads to a large wingspan, which affects the take-off and landing of the aircraft in many aspects, such as runway width, structure safety and crosswind effects. This paper introduces a monoplane-biplane morphing aircraft, which cruises as a monoplane and takes off and lands as a biplane, switching between the two modes during flight. In addition, its morphing does not rely on any active drive mechanism, but relies on ailerons to change lift to drive morphing. This design can change wingspan to a large extent, take into account the different wingspan requirements of take-off, landing and cruising, and save the structure weight, space and complexity of the morphing drive mechanism, thereby improving maintainability. However, as a new morphing mode, this design also brings challenges in many aspects, such as aerodynamic design, multi-body dynamics and control, structural reliability, and experimental verification.