The challenges of miniaturization solar plane

In many aerial vehicles applications, the flight duration is a key factor for the success of a mission. A solution to improve significantly this endurance is the use of solar energy. This chapter presents a conceptual design methodology for the sizing of solar-powered airplanes, applicable to MAVs as well as to manned sailplanes, that optimizes the sizing of the different elements. It uses mathematical models, for weight prediction for example, that were studied on a very large range. This allows to clearly point out the problems that occur when scaling down solar MAVs.

Air transport, Endurance, Solar aircraft, Solar energy