Integration of Micro-Structured Photovoltaic Cells into the Ultra-Light Wing Structure for Extended Range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
| Autor: | Ileana Cernica, Alin Istrate, Catalin Parvulescu, Gabriela Cristina Ionescu, Octavian Ionescu, Elena Manea, Mirela Petruta Suchea |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Technology
Computer science QH301-705.5 QC1-999 UAV Automotive engineering Range (aeronautics) ultra-light wing General Materials Science Retranslation Biology (General) Instrumentation QD1-999 Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes Wing Payload Process Chemistry and Technology Physics Photovoltaic system photovoltaic integration General Engineering Flight time Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) Computer Science Applications Chemistry Open market operation microstructures TA1-2040 |
| Zdroj: | Applied Sciences Volume 11 Issue 22 Applied Sciences, Vol 11, Iss 10890, p 10890 (2021) |
| ISSN: | 2076-3417 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/app112210890 |
| Popis: | There have been large developments in the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) industry over the last decade. Although UAV development was mainly for military related use in the beginning and despite there being fear surrounding the release of this technology to the open market for quite a long time, nowadays, there are a variety of applications where UAVs are used extensively, such as in agriculture, infrastructure inspection and monitoring, mobile retranslation relays for communications, etc. One of the weaknesses of electrically propelled UAVs is flight autonomy there is often a difficult trade-of between the weight of the payload, batteries, and surface to be surveyed that is necessary to determine. There have been many attempts to use photovoltaic cells to increase the flight time for UAVs however, a reliable solution has not yet been developed. The present paper presents improvements that have been conducted to extend the autonomy of electrically derived UAVs: instead of gluing photovoltaic cells on the wings, the new approach embeds the solar cells into the wing structure as well as develops a new wing that is significantly lighter to compensate for the weight added by the photovoltaic cells. It was demonstrated that by using this approach, a 33% increase in the flight time can be achieved with only one modified wing in a prototype vehicle. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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