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.
Autonomous Soaring
2007-10-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
NTRS | 2007
|NTIS | 2007
|IEEE | 2017
|Autonomous Soaring Flight Results
NTRS | 2006
|Autonomous Soaring Flight Results
NTIS | 2006
|