Integrated Power Simulation for a Solar-Powered, Computationally-Intensive Unmanned Aircraft

In recent years, we have seen an uptrend in the popularity of UAVs driven by the desire to apply these aircraft to areas such as precision farming, infrastructure and environment monitoring, surveillance, surveying and mapping, search and rescue missions, weather forecasting, and more. A major technical hurdle to overcome is drastically reducing the overall power consumption of these UAVs so they can be powered by solar arrays and for long periods of time. This paper presents simulation results for a long-endurance, solar-powered unmanned aircraft, using an integrated aircraft power model for solar generation and aircraft propulsion. These power consumption and generation models are described, derived, and integrated into a cohesive system-wide aircraft power model, presented in the form of a systemic flow diagram. Power balance expressions are also imposed based on temporal and physical constraints. The UIUC-TUM Solar Flyer, a computationally-intensive, long-endurance solar-powered unmanned aircraft, is an example aircraft for the simulation. Trajectory and time parameters from a recent long-endurance flight are used to define the simulation conditions. The results of the simulation are then compared to the experimental flight test results.