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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Modeling And Testing Powerplant Subsystems Of A Solar Uas, Luke J. Bughman
Modeling And Testing Powerplant Subsystems Of A Solar Uas, Luke J. Bughman
Master's Theses
In order to accurately conduct the preliminary and detailed design of solar powered Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of the systems involved. In particular, it is desirable to have mathematical models and analysis tools describing the energy income and expenditure of the vehicle. Solar energy income models may include available solar irradiance, photovoltaic array power output, and maximum power point tracker efficiency. Energy expenditure models include battery charging and discharging characteristics, propulsion system efficiency, and aerodynamic efficiency. In this thesis, a series of mathematical models were developed that characterize the performance of these …
Propulsion System Testing For A Long-Endurance Solar-Powered Unmanned Aircraft, D. Dantsker, Robert Deters, Marco Caccamo
Propulsion System Testing For A Long-Endurance Solar-Powered Unmanned Aircraft, D. Dantsker, Robert Deters, Marco Caccamo
Publications
The increase in popularity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been driven by their use in civilian, education, government, and military applications. However, limited on-board energy storage significantly limits flight time and ultimately usability. The propulsion system plays a critical part in the overall energy consumption of the UAV; therefore, it is necessary to determine the most optimal combination of possible propulsion system components for a given mission profile, i.e. propellers, motors, and electronic speed controllers (ESC). Hundreds of options are available for the different components with little performance specifications available for most of them. In order to determine the …