An unmanned solar powered aircraft configuration called SOLITAIR has been designed. This aircraft is intended to be used as an high altitude long endurance (HALE) sensor platform for year-round operation at intermediate latitudes up to about ±55°. For the design studies leading to this aircraft configuration, a software package has been developed which enables an effective design and a proper simulation of the entire solar aircraft system for various flight missions. The performance analysis and the mission simulation showed, that a configuration with large additional solar panels, that can be tilted in order to follow the sun angle during daytime operation appears to be superior to aircraft configurations with wing-mounted solar cells for the desired operational area. In order to examine the basic flight characteristics of the SOLITAIR configuration a remote controlled demonstration model has been built and test flown.
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An unmanned solar powered aircraft configuration called SOLITAIR has been designed. This aircraft is intended to be used as an high altitude long endurance (HALE) sensor platform for year-round operation at intermediate latitudes up to about ±55°. For the design studies leading to this aircraft configuration, a software package has been developed which enables an effective design and a proper simulation of the entire solar aircraft system for various flight missions. The performance analysis and...
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