Title :
Solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle for continuous flight: Conceptual overview and optimization
Author :
Morton, S. ; Scharber, Luke ; Papanikolopoulos, Nikolaos
Author_Institution :
Center for Distrib. Robot., Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
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 :
autonomous aerial vehicles; optimisation; photovoltaic cells; robust control; solar powered vehicles; conceptual overview; flight tested small scale high efficiency aircraft prototype; optimal battery; optimization; photovoltaic array mass; powered flight; robust continuous flight; small scale unmanned aircraft; solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle; Aircraft; Aircraft propulsion; Arrays; Batteries; Drag; Photovoltaic systems;
Conference_Titel :
Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Karlsruhe
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-5641-1
DOI :
10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630659