Study of Photovoltaic Cells Implantation in a Long-Endurance Airplane Drone

Applications of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) are expanding for long-endurance mission such as agricultural inspection, fire prevention and many others. Photovoltaic cells can be added to the wing surface and extend the global endurance of the UAV. This paper builds a model of the whole system and estimates the energy savings that can be achieved for different cell technologies and different types of missions. Furthermore, the impact of airplane movement (roll) on the performance of the maximum power point tracking control algorithm (MPPT) is studied.