Development of a solar powered multirotor micro aerial vehicle
Aly Abidali, Stephen A. Agha, Antonio Munjiza, Mohammad Hasan Shaheed
Abstract
Abstract Rotary-wing aerial vehicles offer manoeuvrability and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) advantages over fixed-wing systems. Rotary-wing systems do however have comparatively higher energy demands and consequently shorter flight times and therefore a greater energy dependence over their fixed-wing counterparts. Advances in photovoltaic technologies have resulted in significant increases in the specific power (power-to-weight-ratio) of solar cells enabling the design of solar-powered rotary-wing aircraft, and now micro-sized variants. The micro aerial vehicle (MAV) presented, the Micro Solarcopter, is a 0.15 m $$\times$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> </mml:math> 0.15 m $$\times$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> </mml:math> 0.02 m solar-rechargeable radio-controlled aircraft. The 0.071 kg aircraft can fly for an average time of 3.5 min, recharge in approximately 68 min under 1000 W/m 2 irradiance at 25 °C and can hibernate for 38 days without sunlight. The paper explores the use of commercially available photovoltaic cells for the purpose of increasing the energy autonomy of multi-rotor MAVs, by enabling them to stay out in the field without returning to base for charging. A working prototype has been presented which incorporates a battery management system, automatic power on and off, low-power sleep mode, and first-person-view (FPV) camera.