Abstract: Based on the COMSOL Multiphysics finite element software, the influence of electrode structures and arrays on the effective thrust and thrust-power ratio of ion wind is studied. First, the influencing factors of ion wind under parallel-placed electrode structures are analyzed. After determining the optimal parameters, the parallel and cross-placed electrode structures are compared. It is found that under the same electrode spacing, the cross-placed structure generates greater effective thrust. Further exploration of different electrode array structures shows that when the array spacing is 40 mm, the effective thrust and thrust-power ratio of the cross-placed array are increased by 15.45% and 2.92% respectively compared with the parallel-placed array; when the spacing is 50 mm, the effective thrust of the former is increased by 27.6%, while the thrust-power ratio only decreases by 5.6%. It can be seen that under small array spacing, the cross-placed array can significantly enhance the effective thrust and maintain a high thrust-power ratio, which is suitable for the electrode array design of compact ion wind propulsion unmanned aerial vehicle and helps to improve the effective payload of the unmanned aerial vehicle.