Sun Tracking Technique Applied to a Solar Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

In recent years, solar energy has been used as an energy source for many different applications. Currently in the area of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), there are research studies that incorporate this renewable energy technology to increase the vehicle’s autonomy. This technique also needs particular construction techniques and electronic boards, designed to reduce weight and increase the efficiency of all solar systems on board the UAV. As is well known, the amount of generated solar energy could be increased throughout a day a sun tracking technique is added. The present paper proves that the roll angle of a fixed wing UAV can be used to track the sun to increase the energy generated by the solar panels placed on the wing. In that case, the plane’s attitude must be compensated with the yaw angle control to be able to perform a photogrammetric mission. This will be achieved using a control strategy based on the super-twisting technique that ensures convergence in finite time even in the presence of bounded perturbations. The design of the control laws as well as the numerical simulation and real flight results are shown to validate the use of the sun tracking system.

Development of an Automatic Solar Tracker Control System for a Tandem-Winged UAV and Its Implementation Strategies

“…Therefore, solar power generators that use solar panels to capture energy from the sun and convert it into electricity may be the only viable solution. A few examples of this solar-powered UAV that have been developed around the world include the AtlantikSolar by ETH Zurich [1], Zephir by Airbus [2], Solara 50 by Alta Devices [3], Helios by AeroVironment [4,5], Global Observer by AeroVironment [6], and Sunseeker by Aurora Flight Sciences [7].…”

Modeling and Control of a Single Rotor Composed of Two Fixed Wing Airplanes

“…In view of the reduction of weight it should have a larger autonomy (g) Larger energy efficiency and less air turbulence in comparison to an equivalent helicopter It is worth mentioning that airplanes can be designed to fly so efficiently that can be driven by solar power (the solar impulse project [8,9]). Remember also that a humanpowered aircraft (The Gossamer Albatross [10]) completed a successful crossing of the English Channel in 1979.…”