Limitations in Total Weight for Solar Aircraft Designed for Infinite Flight
Résumé
This paper presents a way to determine a weight
feasibility criterion for solar-powered airplanes designed to
perform infinite flight. The criterion is fast and simple to
compute and can be used for initial assessments on aircraft
design and mission planning. The derivation starts with taking
solar cell weight and efficiency into account, then is expanded
to energy-storage and propulsion group considerations. This
step-by-step approach can then be used to determine a feasible
weight and predict system performance properties.
The presented criterion was validated using data from
three different unmanned solar airplanes. SkySailor, a 3.2m
wingspan, 2.55kg light small type of unmanned airplane,
AtlantikSolar weighting 6.7kg and with a wingspan of 5.65m
and the Helios HP01 Prototype, with 75.3m wingspan and
929kg weight one of the largest unmanned solar aircrafts. All
three validations proved the concept and granted additional
performance estimations.