Flight paths for a regenerative fuel cell based high altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being developed worldwide for the purpose of communications or military activities. We considered a Regenerative fuel cell (RFC)-based High altitude long endurance (HALE) UAVs because it can regenerate hydrogen and oxygen by using power of photovoltaic arrays duri...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of mechanical science and technology 2016, 30(7), , pp.3401-3409
Main Authors: Cha, Moon-Yong, Kim, Minjin, Sohn, Young-Jun, Yang, Tae-Hyun, Kim, Seung-Gon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aircraft
Arrays
Control
Durability
Dynamical Systems
Endurance
Engineering
Flight paths
Fuel cells
High altitude
Industrial and Production Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Military communications
Military technology
Missions
Regenerative fuel cells
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Vibration
기계공학
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being developed worldwide for the purpose of communications or military activities. We considered a Regenerative fuel cell (RFC)-based High altitude long endurance (HALE) UAVs because it can regenerate hydrogen and oxygen by using power of photovoltaic arrays during the day. To make an RFC-based HALE UAVs fly continuously, the study of flight paths is essential and an easy approach using the current technologies. We introduced the four cases of flight paths and determined their required energies. It is concluded that climb-after-glide flight is best feasible flight path among four flight paths for RFC system-based HALE UAVs due to air density and time of operating motor. In addition to climb-after-glide flight other flight strategies enable the aircraft to continuously conduct missions in limited range of an altitude, which validated that the RFC system is suitable for use in a HALE UAVs.
ISSN:1738-494X
1976-3824
DOI:10.1007/s12206-016-0649-9