Life cycle assessment of an unmanned aerial vehicle according to three different power group configurations

It is inevitable today to provide more effective, more efficient and sustainable development with the use of consumable resources to reduce environmental problems. In this context, it is an important issue to reveal the negative effects of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on the environment, the use of which is increasing day by day. In this study, the environmental effects of a fixed-wing mini UAV (Hydra named), whose design and prototypes were made in Eskişehir Technical University Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, were investigated by the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. In the LCA method applied for this UAV named Hydra, firstly, product flow diagrams were prepared and three different models were created according to conventional, fuel cell hybrid and micro-turbojet power group options. SimaPro 9.1 software was used in the implementation of the LCA. According to the data collection plan prepared, data were collected simultaneously with the production of Hydra. Inventory lists were created by organizing these collected data and the direction of the information in these lists, they were processed in the software, supported by Ecoinvent 3.6 databases. Tree diagrams were produced by performing hot spot analyzes. Environmental impact analysis of all three LCA models was performed for 14 impact categories using CML-IA baseline and ReCiPe calculation methods. As a result of these analyzes, it was observed that materials such as EPS foam and carbon fiber and fossil-based kerosene fuel increased the amount of environmental impact excessively. Also, it has been determined as a result of the analyzes that the design phase has a remarkable effect.