Preliminary Design of Solar Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Applications involving the use of alternate, renewable energy sources are expanding exponentially, and are in high demand. Solar power has long been harnessed for such applications and aviation is no stranger to it with its strong drive towards becoming an environment-friendly industry. This paper describes a straight forward procedure to design and test a solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle that can fly continuously for 24 hours at any day of the year. The paper introduces the modeling and preparation of hardware testing of the propulsion and power subsystem. The main components of this sub-system are solar panels, the electromechanical drive train and the propeller. A design for a thrust stand to measure the performance of the system is also introduced.