Range and Endurance Analysis of a Conceptual Lighter-than-air All-electric Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

M.Z. Hasni@Mohd Zikri ； E. Gires ； A.S.M. Harithuddin

《Journal of Aeronautics, Astronautics and Aviation》 52卷1期 Vol.52 No.1 SAWAE 2019 Special Issue (2020/03) Pp. 1-13

https://doi.org/10.6125/JoAAA.202003_52(1).01

摘要

The purpose of this project is to analyze a conceptual design airship to see it whether its performance can make it applicable in high-altitude missions. The produced design is a lighter-than-air (LTA) unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV). This is a hybrid of technologies between a drone and an LTA vehicle that uses LTA gases as a primary source of lifting force. This hybrid technology shines in a potential to be explored as it can greatly solve the problem of drone endurance that uses batteries, where their mission time is very limited and often needs recharging. Therefore, this design can offer a very minimal power consumption from the battery as it is only used for onboard systems and forward movement only [1]. The performance of the airship is found to have limited maximum speed where the drag generated increases exponentially with LTA UAV speed. The airship uses electric motors to negate the environmental impact of fuels or hybrid systems as a power source. The range and endurance obtained for this design are 80 km and 32 hr. This project could contribute in discovering the advantages of LTA UAV replacing costly fuel- or battery-powered fixed wing UAVs.

關鍵字

Airship ； All-electric ； Lighter-than-air ； Propulsion ； UAV