Research on a New Energy Extracting Method of Dynamic Soaring from Shear Wind

Abstract

AbstractIn order to improve the flight range and time of electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a new method of using dynamic soaring mode to extract electric energy from shear wind is proposed. The electric UAV is equipped with a windmill power generation system, and uses an unpowered dynamic soaring mode to fly in a shear wind field. It relies on relative airspeed to drive the windmill to generate electricity and store electrical energy. This paper established a linear shear wind model, an UAV dynamics model and a windmill power generation model, analyzed the dynamic soaring energy extracting mechanism and the total energy change law, the dynamic soaring parameters was derived. The conclusion was found out that larger wind gradient, larger wing load and smaller drag coefficient are more conducive to the UAV extracts energy. The GPOPS-II toolkit is used to solve the minimum wind gradient and optimal trajectory of dynamic soaring with wind power generation.KeywordsDynamic soaringShear windElectric unmanned aerial vehicleEnergy extractingWind power generation