Citation: Mateja, K.; Skarka, W.;
Peciak, M.; Niestrój, R.; Gude, M.
Energy Autonomy Simulation Model
of Solar Powered UAV. Energies 2023,
16, 479. https://doi.org/10.3390/
en16010479
Academic Editors: Jaroslaw Pytka,
Andrzej Łukaszewicz, Zbigniew
Kulesza, Wojciech Giernacki and
Andriy Holovatyy
Received: 30 November 2022
Revised: 23 December 2022
Accepted: 27 December 2022
Published: 1 January 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Article
Energy Autonomy Simulation Model of Solar Powered UAV
Krzysztof Mateja
1,2,
* , Wojciech Skarka
1,2,
* , Magdalena Peciak
1,3
, Roman Niestrój
2,4
and Maik Gude
3
1
Department of Fundamentals of Machinery Design, Silesian University of Technology,
Stanisława Konarskiego 18A, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland
2
SkyTech eLab LLC, Stanisława Konarskiego 18C, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland
3
Institute of Lightweight Engineering and Polymer Technology, Technische Universitat Dresden,
Holbeinstraße 3, 01307 Dresden, Germany
4
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Silesian University of Technology,
Bolesława Krzywoustego 2, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland
* Correspondence: krzysztof.mateja@polsl.pl (K.M.); wojciech.skarka@polsl.pl (W.S.)
Abstract:
The energy autonomy of UAVs is an important direction in the field of aerospace. Long-
endurance aerial vehicles allow for continuous flight; however, to meet the guidelines, the power
supply system has to be able to harvest energy from outside. Solar cells allow the production of
electricity during the day when the sun shines on their surface. Depending on the location, time,
weather, and other external factors, the energy produced by PV panels will change. In order to
calculate as accurately as possible the energy obtained by solar cells, we developed a simulation
model that took into account all of the external restrictions and the UAV’s limits during flight. The
conducted analysis made it possible to obtain information for the specific input data on whether the
UAV is able to fly for 24 h in a specific flight scenario. The UAV powered by solar cells developed by
us and the performed aviation missions have shown that the UAV is capable of continuous flight
without the need to land.
Keywords:
renewable energy; solar cell; Model-Based Design; energy harvesting; energy autonomy;
UAV power supply system
1. Introduction
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used in everyday life. The scope
of their work is constantly enlarged from casual filming [
1
] to advanced military use [
2
].
UAVs are used for distributing shipments, mapping, surveillance, and monitoring borders
or crops [
3
,
4
]. The limited duration of the UAV flight causes the necessity to land and
the resulting loss of time in terms of interrupting the mission, charging or replacing the
batteries. Designers of UAVs are looking for opportunities to obtain energy from outside; if
this is achieved, the time of flight will be extended [
5
]. The goal is to achieve full energy
autonomy. The energy autonomy of UAVs is an important direction in the field of aerospace
because, in addition to the possibility of continuous operation, another advantage is the
lower cost of this kind of application in comparison to using a satellite. One of the most
used sources is a solar cell [4,5].
Solar-powered UAVs are not a new concept of aerial vehicles. We can distinguish
many types of solar-powered UAVs, for example: Atlantic Solar [
5
,
6
], Solar Impulse 2 [
7
],
Airbus zephyr [
8
], PHASA-35 [
9
], and Odysseus [
10
]. Each of these aircrafts is based on a
lightweight composite structure and is equipped with photovoltaic (PV) panels. Depending
on the purpose of the UAV, the payload aspect, as well as the weight of the measuring,
detection, and control devices should be taken into account. A UAV’s weight should be as
low as possible. The load-bearing structure then enables a larger payload or an increase
in the capacity of the batteries, which allows for an extension in the applications of the
UAV [3,5].
Energies 2023, 16, 479. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16010479 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies
