A guidance and control method was developed to detect and exploit thermals for energy gain. Latency in energy rate estimation degraded performance. The concept of a UAV harvesting energy from the atmosphere has been shown to be feasible with existing technology. Many UAVs have similar mission constraints to birds and sailplanes. a) Surveillance; b) Point to point flight with minimal energy; and c) Increased ground speed.
Guidance and Control of an Autonomous Soaring Vehicle with Flight Test Results
2007-05-08
Conference paper
No indication
English
Guidance and Control of an Autonomous Soaring Vehicle with Flight Test Results AIAA Paper
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