Design of a High-Altitude Sun-Powered Aircraft
Luciano Magno Frágola Barbosa1; Ricardo Luiz Utsch de Freitas Pinto1; Paulo Henriques Iscold Andrade de Oliveira1
1 UFMG
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-2014
Resumo
The aim of this work is to present the design studies for an unmanned, Sun-powered, long-range, long-endurance, lightweight (less than 40 kg), high-altitude (above 80 thousand feet flight) research aircraft. The studies comprise the aircraft typical mission; the aerodynamic, mass and systems arrangements; and the preliminary propulsion and performance characteristics. This Unmanned Air Vehicle, or "UAV", is defined under a dedicated iterative procedure which is also briefly described in the document. Among other design challenges, special care is taken in the effects of Reynolds Number in the aircraft performance parameters, due to the requirement of extreme altitude flight. The features of the obtained configuration can be considered as good indicators of the technical feasibility of this long-endurance, Sun-powered UAV.
Palavras-chave: Sun-powered aircraf; Solar aircraft; long-endurance; high-altitude; UAV; Aircraft design