Project solar unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

Abstract

This project aims to engineer lighter-than-air vehicle with mission critical engineering platforms, to integrate and perform optimization to achieve a breakthrough. This is first achieved by performing detail studies on each engineering platforms and extracting ideas from critical components before the first conceptualization. While there is a need to meet the technical requirements of the designs, the other equally important aspects of the product would be to meet the demand from the customer’s interests. To achieve the balance between the needs and demands, a Quality Function Deployment was introduced into this study to keep both party on track. While designing the air frame of the aircraft, a minimalist approach was taken to reduce the overall weight while still ensuring the structural integrity of the aircraft. A twin boom structure was decided upon to fulfil the technical requirements and the merits of using such a configuration will be discussed in details. Solar powered aircraft pioneers the new generation of aviation by reducing direct carbon emissions to zero. As higher efficient solar cells are introduced into the market, the idea of powering aircrafts with solar energy seems plausible. In other words, performing flight in the daylight would be governed entirely by the amount of radiance from the sun, and the aircraft would maintain flight as long the power extracted from the sun is sufficient. As the operation progresses into the night, things get interesting and factors contributing to the success of a 24-hour cycle will be discussed in details.