Design Analysis of Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Authors

  • Karthik Reddy Buchireddy Sri VIT UNIVERSITY
  • Poondla Aneesh VIT UNIVERSITY
  • Kiran Bhanu VIT UNIVERSITY
  • M. Natarajan VIT UNIVERSITY

Keywords:

Solar cell, Unmanned aerial vehicle, Renewable Energy, Endurance, Conceptual design.

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.

Author Biographies

Karthik Reddy Buchireddy Sri, VIT UNIVERSITY

Student

Poondla Aneesh, VIT UNIVERSITY

Student

Kiran Bhanu, VIT UNIVERSITY

Student

M. Natarajan, VIT UNIVERSITY

Department of Mechanical & Energy Engineering

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Published

2016-10-30

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 4 (2016): Oct./Dec. 2016

Section

Original Papers

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0. Authors are free to Share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and Adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially). JATM allow the authors to retain publishing rights without restrictions.