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.
«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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