HALE UAV Review

Tanvi Prakash
May 2016
CONTENTS
Sr No Title Authors Journal Year Page
No
1 Solar Powered UAV: Design and Morton et al 2015 2015 3
Experiments IEEE/RSJ
International
Conference on
Intelligent
Robots and
Systems,
Hamburg
2 Optimal Design of a High- De Mattos et Journal of 2013 4
Altitude Solar Powered al Aerospace
Unmanned Airplane Technology
and
Management
3 A Solar-Powered Hand- Oettershagen 2015 IEEE 2015 5
Launchable UAV for Low- et al International
Altitude Multi-Day Continuous Conference on
Flight Robotics and
Automation
(ICRA),
Seattle
4 Unmanned solar airplanes:
Leutenneger Thesis, ETH 2014 6
Design and Algorithms for Zurich
Efficient and Robust
Autonomous Operation
5 X-HALE: A UAV for nonlinear Cesnik, IFASD 2013 7
aeroelastic experiments Jones

6 Numerical Simulation Study on Chen wt al Procedia 2015 8

Propeller Slipstream Interference Engineering
of High Altitude Long Endurance
Unmanned Air Vehicle

OLDER PAPERS
7 Numerical / experimental Frulla et al Composites 2008 9
structural characterization of Part B
composite advanced joints for
HALE-UAV platforms

8 Design , manufacturing and Frulla, Composite 2008 10

testing of a HALE-UAV Cestino Structures
structural demonstrator
9 Design of solar high altitude long Cestino Aerospace 2006 11
endurance aircraft for multi Science and
payload & operations Technology

10 (Less relevant) Recent theses and papers on HALE UAVs 12

2
Title of Paper:
Solar Powered UAV: Design and Experiments
Authors: Institute:
S. Morton, R. d’Sa, N. Papanikolopoulos U. Minnesota
Journal: Year
2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and 2015
Systems, Hamburg
Purpose of Paper:
The paper describes the methodology followed for design, fabrication and test of a small
demonstrator sola HALE UAV.
Review:
The concept design process is described, being largely the same as methods followed by
Raymer. Propeller and electric motor selection are carried out. A gearbox is used so that a
larger propeller can be used, so that low aircraft speeds can be obtained.
Energy for the motor is provide by a solar array, and is managed by a power management
system that includes an MPPT (maximum power point tracker) which maximizes the power
output of the array by varying the output voltage.
A 3 m wingspan demonstrator is built using wood and carbon fibre.
Flight tests were carried out under carious temperature and ambient light conditions.
The way ahead for the research is stated to be mission path planning to maximize available
solar radiation, and building a larger model in order to deal with the effects of scaling the
aerodynamics and inertia properties of the aircraft.

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Title of Paper:
Optimal Design of a High-Altitude Solar Powered Unmanned Airplane
Authors: Institute:
B. S. de Mattos, N. R. Secco, E. F. Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica – São José
Salles dos Campos/SP – Brazil
Journal: Year
Journal of Aerospace Technology and 2013
Management
Purpose of Paper:
The paper describes the methodology for optimisation of a HALE UAV.
Review:
A commercial tool called modeFrontier is utilized for optimisation of the HALE UAV.
The paper describes the design process for a solar powered UAV: estimation of power
requirement for the UAV, using solar irradiation models to determine available solar energy
and hence the available power from selected solar cells. Emphasis is laid on motor selection
and power management.
The design variables for optimisation are chosen as wing and tail aspect ratios, reference area,
tail volume coefficients, Tail arm, tail configuration and outer wing dihedral.
The objective was considered to be MTOW at first. Later, multi-objective optimisation was
done considering energy surplus. Optimisation was carried out subject to the fkihgt envelope
for cruise, available power density of solar cells, battery weight and handling qualities in
phugoid, short-period, Dutch roll, divergent spiral and roll subsidence modes as per MIL
standards.
It was found that energy conversion and storage was the most severe constraint.

4
Title of Paper:
A Solar-Powered Hand-Launchable UAV for Low-Altitude Multi-Day Continuous Flight
Authors: Institute:
Oettershagen et al ETH Zurich
Journal: Year
2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2015
(ICRA), Seattle
Purpose of Paper:
The paper describes conceptual design and testing of a solar LALE UAV called AtlantikSolar
developed at ETH Zurich.
Review:
The paper is an extension of the foundational work in solar UAVs carried out by Noth et al at
ETH in 2008. The aircraft is a 4-month endurance platform.
The power calculations are carried out as per the methods of Noth, but incorporating the
effect of efficiency of the MPPT module and payload power requirement. The method also
accounts for multi-day operation by considering night-time flying algorithms and available
solar irradiation in the season it is expected to operate in.
The optimisation objective is to maximize excess time available at the end of each 24-hour
cycle of charging and discharging. Constraints are imposed on maximum wingspan, taper
ratio and battery mass. Thus an optimal design is arrived at and built.
The section on control system design was skipped.
Flight tests are described and various parameters are tested and verified such as actual flight
power recorded, autopilot performance, battery backup for 12 hours and optical payload
performance.
Future work will focus on image processing, map reconstruction, mission planning and
autonomy.

5
Title of Paper:
Unmanned solar airplanes: Design and Algorithms for Efficient and Robust Autonomous
Operation
Authors: Institute:
S. Leutenneger ETH Zurich
Journal: Year
Thesis 2014

Review:
The work relates to the same LALE UAV described in the previous paper with the mission to
cross the Atlantic Sea only on solar power over a duration of four months.
A methodology is presented that performs aerodynamics and structural calculations of a
simplified shell and a rib wing concept. This enables that weight prediction can be carried out
by simple build-up methods.
The performance evaluation code accounts for flying optimized altitude profiles, in order to
allow for potential energy storage. An optimal variable altitude profile is also developed
based on available solar radiation and mission plan. This same profile is generated for
different times of the year.
The focus of the work however is on multi-sensor state estimation and data fusion and its
description is omitted here.
The last section describes some light testing carried out to test the algorithms for sensor
fusion.

6
Title of Paper:
X-HALE: A UAV for nonlinear aeroelastic experiments
Authors: Institute:
C. E. S. Cesnik, J. Jones U Mich
Journal: Year
IFASD 2013

Review:
The objective of the X HALE UAV is to provide a platform for collection of data related to
flexible wings such as typical solar HALE UAV configurations. The platform was designed
and flown in 2013.
A risk-reduction vehicle was first designed and flown, and later a bigger model was built and
flown using an sutopilot with an in-house developed flight control and sensor array.
Methods are devised to correlate flight test data from the sensors with simulation using the
UMich Non-linear Aeroelastic Simulation Toolbox code. sensitivity analysis is carried out to
consider the effect of uncertainty and error in the measurements obtained from sensors.

7
Title of Paper:
Numerical Simulation Study on Propeller Slipstream Interference of High Altitude Long
Endurance Unmanned Air Vehicle
Authors: Institute:
G. Chen, P. Chen, P. Li, P. Bai, C. Ji China Academy of
Aerospace
Journal: Year
Procedia Engineering (Asia-Pacific International Symposium on 2015
Aerospace Technology)
Purpose of Paper:
The paper documents a simulation for power effects of the propeller on various performance
metrics of a HALE UAV, modelled similar to the Predator.
Review:
A pusher configuration of a HALE UAV is proposed, similar to the Global Hawk with a
turboprop propulsion. MRF model is used to simulate the propeller and its effects. Apart from
aerodynamics of a rotating propeller, it also accounts for coriolis forces on the aircraft due to
the rotation of the propeller.
The propeller inlet cylinder affects about 25% of the wingspan of the UAV. Effects are
directly proportional to the RPM of the propeller.
The study concludes that studies that do not include propeller slipstream effects have the
following issues:
- Underestimate lift in cruise and climb (ie: at higher trim angles)
- Underestimate drag
- Underestimate pitching moment coefficient, and hence roll and yaw (by gyroscopic effect)
The paper was not found to have specific significance to HALE UAVs, since the nature of
the results is generic and is applicable to any class of aircraft with a similar layout.

8
Title of Paper:
Numerical / experimental structural characterization of composite advanced joints for HALE-
UAV platforms
Authors: Institute:
G. Frulla, G. Romeo Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Journal: Year
Composites: Part B 2008
Purpose of Paper:
Since HALE UAV’s have very high wingspan, there are constraints on transportability and
manufacturability. This necessitates having several structural joints as part of the modular
construction of the UAV. For composites, joint design is a challenge due to high bearing
stresses and stress concentration and poor fatigue behavior.
Review:
A tubular spar joint is designed to take shear and bending load. The joint is embedded inside
the spar and contains metallic reinforcements at the joining locations.
The joint is tested for fatigue and it was found that there was no permanent deformation after
1 million cycles, except for a little adhesive de-bonding. However, the equivalent stiffness
was found to reduce after 500,000 cycles. An FE model was also developed to simulate these
results, however it failed to account for the non-linear behavior of the spar joint close to
failure. Adhesive behavior was also simulated and was found to be in close agreement with
the test results.

9
Title of Paper:
Design , manufacturing and testing of a HALE-UAV structural demonstrator
Authors: Institute:
G. Frulla, E. Cestino Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Journal: Year
Composite Structures 2008
Purpose of Paper:
The design of a HALE UAV is taken up under FP5 programme. The configuration:
Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) construction with wingspan of 75 m, twin booms,
horizontal tail, lightweight fuselage with payload housing. Based on the prevailing safety
guidelines for civilian aircraft, a study of structural strength of the airframe was carried out,
both by FEM and experimentally.
Static tests were carried out on the entire airframe rather than on individual components in
order to correctly capture all the interaction effects.
Review:
The paper describes the methodology of scaling the design to a 1:3 model, in terms of
geometry, aerodynamics and inertia.
A scale model (1:3 spanwise and 1:2 chordwise) of the designed wing, boom and tail-plane
was fabricated (24 m wingspan, 312 kg weight). Feasibility of fabrication of the wing
structure was another focus of the study. Spars were made of epoxy-CFRP and ribs from
Rohacell 51 foam. The leading edge was made of epoxy-GFRP. Construction was modular
for easy handling and deployment of the scaled prototype. For this purpose, special joints
were developed and tested. Some inconsistencies arose in the assembly process due to
incorrect drawings but were overcome during assembly.
Permissible stress and strain levels in the carbon fibre composite are specified.
Manufacturing of wing structures, including booms, joints and skin is carried out.
dummy fuselage was attached to the wing for application of loads, by hydraulic means. Static
tests were performed on it as per the following load case requirements: JAR-VLA-333 (In-
flight envelope conditions), 337 (limiting envelope conditions), 421 (tail-plane loads for
longitudinal stability), 423 (other tail-plane loads). Criteria for acceptance was 1000 micro-
strains. In some cases, scaled loads were applied in order to avoid breaking the painstakingly
fabricated structure.

10
Title of Paper:

Design of solar high altitude long endurance aircraft for multi payload & operations

Authors: Institute:

Cestino Politecnico di Torino

Journal: Year

Aerospace Science and Technology 2006

Purpose of Paper:

CAPECON project is a programme to identify the most cost-effective civil UAV platform for
communications and surveillance. It considers the following configuarations: HALE, MALE
and Rotary UAV.
The project for a solar powered High Altitude Very-High Endurance (HAVE) UAV was
taken up at POLITO.

Platform Cost of Operation

1 Solar Powered HALE 750 euro/flight hour

5 MALE at lower altitude 3060 euro/flight hour

Standard Airborne System 4500 euro/flight hour

Specifications based on previous knowledge/work:

Payload Weight 100 – 150 kg

Max Electrical Power 1 – 1.5 kW

MToW 850 – 900 kg

Endurance 6 months

Operating Altitude 17 km

Operating Latitude 44 deg N

Window of Operation 1st April to 30th

September

Methodology:

A parametric study was carried out on the following parameters:

Wind speeds,solar radiation change over one year, altitude, latitude, solar cellefficiency,
weight, fuel cell efficiency, energy density, aerodynamicprofile drag.
Features of Design:
95% of lifting surfaces were covered with solar arrays.

11
Each motor+blade assembly = 6.5 kg, 2.3 m dia
Blended wing configuration selected due to good surface area, and performance.
Retractable tricycle landing gear.
FEA carried out to conform to JAR-VLA-333 (condition on maximum allowable strain –
1000 microstrain.
Areas of concern identified:
1. Solar cell efficiency
2. Fuel cell technology (for storage of fuel)
3. Structural weight optimisation (high modulus CFRP)
4. Aerodynamic and propulsion efficiency

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Recent theses on HALE (not very relevant):
1. Aeroelastic Modelling and Control of Very Flexible Air Vehicles using a Nonlinear
Modal Formulation, W. Yinan, Imperial College London, 2015.
2. An Intelligent Power Management System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Propulsion
Applications, L. Karunarathne, Cranfield, 2012
3. Zephyr: A High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Air Vehicle, A. Rapinett,
University of Surrey, 2009.

Other recent papers:

1. Reviews of methods to extract and store energy for solar-powered aircraft, Gao et al,
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015

2. Energy management strategy for solar-powered high-altitude long-endurance aircraft,

Gao et al, Energy Conversion and Management, 2013
3. Aerodynamic Design of the Solar-Powered High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE)
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Hwang et al, International Journal of Aeronautical
and Space Sciences, 2016
4. Considerable parameters of using PV cells for solar-powered aircrafts, Fazelpour et
al, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2013

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