TY - GEN
T1 - Solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle for continuous flight
T2 - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2013
AU - Morton, Scott
AU - Scharber, Luke
AU - Papanikolopoulos, Nikolaos
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84887292770&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84887292770&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630659
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630659
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84887292770
SN - 9781467356411
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 766
EP - 771
BT - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2013
Y2 - 6 May 2013 through 10 May 2013
ER -