Development of Design Methodology for a Small Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Parvathy Rajendran,Howard Smith

doi:10.1155/2018/2820717

Abstract

Existing mathematical design models for small solar-powered electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) only focus on mass, performance, and aerodynamic analyses. Presently, UAV designs have low endurance. The current study aims to improve the shortcomings of existing UAV design models. Three new design aspects (i.e., electric propulsion, sensitivity, and trend analysis), three improved design properties (i.e., mass, aerodynamics, and mission profile), and a design feature (i.e., solar irradiance) are incorporated to enhance the existing small solar UAV design model. A design validation experiment established that the use of the proposed mathematical design model may at least improve power consumption-to-take-off mass ratio by 25% than that of previously designed UAVs. UAVs powered by solar (solar and battery) and nonsolar (battery-only) energy were also compared, showing that nonsolar UAVs can generally carry more payloads at a particular time and place than solar UAVs with sufficient endurance requirement. The investigation also identified that the payload results in the highest effect on the maximum take-off weight, followed by the battery, structure, and propulsion weight with the three new design aspects (i.e., electric propulsion, sensitivity, and trend analysis) for sizing consideration to optimize UAV designs.

Highlights

Awareness of the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for multiple missions has increased the level of research into improving UAV design and technologies
For more than a decade, small solar- and battery-powered electric UAVs were the subject of research and development [1, 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
This design model can be used for design estimations for large UAVs, all calculations were explicitly focused on small handlaunchable UAVs weighing less than 4 kg

Summary

Introduction

Awareness of the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for multiple missions has increased the level of research into improving UAV design and technologies. Increased focus has been placed recently on developing hybrid-powered electric UAVs, especially with the combination of solar energy and battery or fuel cells in a batterypowered system. The current study considers the pros and cons of various power systems [1,2,3,4,5,6] and examines the design and development of solar cells in battery-powered UAVs. For more than a decade, small solar- and battery-powered electric UAVs were the subject of research and development [1, 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. This mathematical design model focuses only on the conceptual design stage in estimating the general sizing of UAV configurations

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion