Mission-Oriented 3D Path Planning for High-Altitude Long-Endurance Solar-Powered UAVs with Optimal Energy Management

Abstract

The conversion efficiency of solar energy and the capacity of energy storage batteries are the key technologies limiting the development of solar-powered aircraft. In this paper, a mission-oriented design for the 3-dimensional (3D) path planning of solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (SP-UAVs) using limited solar energy to maximize the mission effectiveness is presented. Based on the solar radiation received model, the energy model, and the kinetic and kinematic model of the SP-UAV, a task planning problem oriented to multiobjective optimization is proposed. Both the pseudospectral and colony algorithms are proposed to search for the optimal mission path, and their joint optimization is employed to realize continuous flight and improve the flight mission capabilities. Explicitly, a multiobjective joint strategy is developed, including maximum power ascending, maximum range flight, maximum glide endurance, and minimum power level flight at night. Numerical and simulation results indicate that our proposed design outperforms the existing approaches not only in solar energy utilization but also in universality.