Modeling and Performance Analysis for Low Altitude Electric UAVs

DOI

10.2991/iccte-16.2016.184How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Battery; Fuel cell; Electric propulsion; Modeling and analysis

Abstract

Compared with traditional internal-combustion engine powered UAVs, electric UAVs have no emission of pollutants and low acoustic signal. So they are more suitable for military or civil missions involving intelligence, surveillance, or reconnaissance (ISR). This paper builds two electric propulsion systems powered by lithium-ion batteries and a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) respectively for low altitude UAVs. The power sources are built with SimPowerSystems blockset in Matlab/Simulink and the UAV model is modeled with AeroSim blockset. To validate these models, the two electric UAVs fly through a diamond flight path with four given mission waypoints. The simulation results of the two electric propulsion systems and the UAV performance, such as dynamic response and endurance, are presented and analyzed. Finally, the endurance of the Li-Ion battery and the fuel cell UAVs with the same weight are compared. And due to the high energy density of the fuel cell, the fuel cell UAV has longer endurance.

Copyright

© 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Guangtong Xu
AU  - Li Liu
AU  - Xiaohui Zhang
PY  - 2016/01
DA  - 2016/01
TI  - Modeling and Performance Analysis for Low Altitude Electric UAVs
BT  - Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Civil, Transportation and Environment
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1058
EP  - 1065
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccte-16.2016.184
DO  - 10.2991/iccte-16.2016.184
ID  - Xu2016/01
ER  -