Configuration Parametric Analysis for the Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design Considering Energy and Mass Balance

Aeronautical and Space-Rocket Engineering


Аuthors

Chen L. *, Strelets D. Y.**

Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), 4, Volokolamskoe shosse, Moscow, А-80, GSP-3, 125993, Russia

*e-mail: lechen@mai.education
**e-mail: dimstrelets@rambler.ru

Abstract

The solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (SPUAVs) are being considered in recent years as a promising research trend due to their potential for extremely long endurance enabled by the renewable solar energy. Theoretically, the solar-powered SPUAVs are capable of continuous day-and-night flight. This advantageous feature makes such aircraft a prospective candidate for effectively replacing satellites and other conventional high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAVs with conventional power plant in missions such as meteorological forecasting and the Earth surface surveillance. The exterior of such UAVs directly determines their flight performance. The configuration parameters effect on the aircraft design characteristics may be evaluated quantitatively by selecting the key configuration parameters and conducting numerical analysis.
This study addresses the energy and mass balance problem in the overall design of the solar-powered UAVs and proposes a new mathematical model for the structural weight estimation. Based on a solar irradiance distribution model, numerical simulations are systematically applied to analyze the coupling effects among major design parameters, including wingspan, aspect ratio, wing loading, total mass and required power. The research integrates both day-night energy balance and structural weight constraints to derive feasible boundaries for the wing loading. Furthermore, it reveals the trends of parameter variations impact on the UAV overall performance. The obtained results indicate that the wing loading of the solar-powered UAV is significantly lower than that of the conventional aircraft, and its design envelope is jointly determined by the upper boundary of the full-day energy balance and the lower boundary of the night energy balance. With the fixed aspect ratio, the wingspan increasing enhances the system surplus power, but it leads to the total mass increase as well. The models and techniques developed in this study provide a theoretical basis for the energy system configuration and overall parameter optimization of the long-endurance solar-powered UAV, offering important practical guidance for the efficient design and energy sustainability of the large-scale solar SPUAVs.

Keywords:

solar-powered UAV, wing loading, general parameters of wing, mass-energy balance

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