Solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle for continuous flight: Conceptual overview and optimization
- 1 May 2013
- conference paper
- conference paper
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Abstract
An aircraft that is capable of continuous flight offers a new level of autonomous capacity for unmanned aerial vehicles. We present an overview of the components and concepts of a small scale unmanned aircraft that is capable of sustaining powered flight without a theoretical time limit. We then propose metrics that quantify the robustness of continuous flight achieved and optimization criteria to maximize these metrics. Finally, the criteria are applied to a fabricated and flight tested small scale high efficiency aircraft prototype to determine the optimal battery and photovoltaic array mass for robust continuous flight.Keywords
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