Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Abstract
The power device constitutes the PV cell, rechargeable battery, and maximum
power point tracker. Solar aircraft lack proper power device sizing to provide
adequate energy to sustain low and high altitude and long endurance flight.
This paper conducts the power device sizing and integration for solar-powered
aircraft applications (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). The solar radiation model,
the aerodynamic model, the energy and mass balance model, and the adopted
aircraft configuration were used to determine the power device sizing,
integration, and application. The input variables were aircraft mass 3 kg,
wingspan 3.2 m, chord 0.3 m, aspect ratio 11.25, solar radiation 825 W/m2
,
lift coefficient 0.913, total drag coefficient 0.047, day time 12 hour, night time
12 hours, respectively. The input variables were incorporated into the MS
Excel program to determine the output variables. The output variables are;
the power required 10.92 W, the total electrical power 19.47 W, the total
electrical energy 465.5 Wh, the daily solar energy 578.33 Wh, the solar cell
area 0.62 m, the number of PV cell 32, and the number of the Rechargeable
battery 74 respectively. The power device was developed with the PV cell
Maxeon Gen III for high efficiency, the rechargeable battery sulfur-lithium
battery for high energy density, and the Maximum power point tracker neural
network algorithm for smart and efficient response. The PD sizing was
validated with three existing designs. The validation results show that 20% reduction of the required number of PV cells and RB and a 30% increase in
flight durations