Development of design methodology for a small solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle

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dc.contributor.authorRajendran, Parvathy
dc.contributor.authorSmith, Howard
dc.date.accessioned2018-06-22T09:09:51Z
dc.date.available2018-06-22T09:09:51Z
dc.date.issued2018-03-27
dc.description.abstractExisting 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.en_UK
dc.identifier.citationParvathy Rajendran and Howard Smith. Development of design methodology for a small solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle. International Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Volume 2018, Article ID 2820717en_UK
dc.identifier.issn1687-5966
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1155/2018/2820717
dc.identifier.urihttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/13260
dc.language.isoenen_UK
dc.publisherHindawi Publishing Corporationen_UK
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.titleDevelopment of design methodology for a small solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicleen_UK
dc.typeArticleen_UK

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