Design Analysis of Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

ABSTRACT One of the main problems in micro unmanned aerial vehicles is endurance or flight time since the general domain aircraft uses conventional fuel, which is a pollutant, has a limited life and is costly. Then, there is a huge demand for using an unlimited non-exhaustible source of energy. Solar energy is one of the unlimited available renewable energy which can be used to increase the endurance of unmanned aerial vehicle without adding significant mass or increasing the size of the fuel system. This paper aims to encourage research on renewable energy sources for aviation considering the basic challenges for a solar-powered aircraft: geographical area of operation, energy collection and storage, payload and design parameters. Hence, a plane is designed for 2 kg, including payload, and is analyzed in various aspects. Besides, the design is optimized starting from airfoil to complete structure for better performance.摘要 微型无人机（micro unmanned aerial vehicles）面临的核心难题之一是续航时长与飞行时间：常规通用航空器使用的传统燃料不仅会造成污染，且使用寿命有限、成本高昂。因此，业界对于使用取之不尽、用之不竭的能源存在巨大需求。太阳能作为一种无限可用的可再生能源，可在不显著增加整机质量或扩大燃油系统尺寸的前提下，提升无人机的续航能力。本文旨在针对太阳能飞行器面临的核心挑战——作业地理范围、能量收集与存储、有效载荷及设计参数，推动航空领域可再生能源相关研究。据此，本文设计了一款总重（含有效载荷）为2千克的飞行器，并从多维度对其开展分析。此外，为实现更优飞行性能，本文从翼型到整机结构对该设计进行了全流程优化。