Developing a modular tool to simulate regeneration power potential using orographic wind-hovering UAVs

Abstract

Applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) are often limited by flight endurance. To address the limitation of endurance, we propose a regenerative soaring method in this paper. The atmospheric energy from updrafts generated by obstacles such as hills and ships can be harvested by UAV's using a regenerative electric drivetrain. With fixed-wing aircraft, the vehicle can hover with specific wind conditions, and the battery can be recharged in the air while wind hovering. In order to research the feasibility of this regenerative soaring method, we present a model to estimate hovering locations and the amount of extractable power using the proposed method. The resulting modular regeneration simulation tool can efficiently determine the possible hovering locations and provide an estimate of the power regeneration potential for each hovering location, given the UAV's aerodynamic characteristics and wind-field conditions. Furthermore, a working regenerative drivetrain test setup was constructed and characterised that showcased promising conversion efficiencies and can be incorporated into existing UAV's easily.