Autonomous Plane
Minor Signals and Embedded Systems
Client company:High Tech Embedded systems - Fontys Lectoraat
Project description
The Autonomous Plane project aims to investigate key aspects of solar energy management, autonomous flight control, and battery storage solutions. This research will explore the feasibility of creating a plane that can operate continuously from one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset using solar power, while charging in-flight.
Context
Because currently existing quadcopters are noisy and energy hungry, we want to find out whether an electrical RC-controlled or autonomous plane can be a better alternative for certain tasks, with efficiency in mind. For example: monitoring large agricultural land during the day.
Results
Our efforts during this project have resulted in:
- Research and recommendations for hardware of the subsystems.
- A built test setup to test the efficiency of different subsystems draining or providing power to the plane.
- Contact with other solar plane student teams and companies of great interest for getting this project to the next level.
- A for now, built manual-controlled airplane.
Based on our efforts, coming groups can start improving the efficiency/ design of the current plane as this project will be running for multiple semesters and the knowledge-base is set.
About the project group
We are a team of four tech students following the Signals & Embedded systems minor. We were pioneers for the autonomous plane project, researching and analyzing the necessary components, technologies, and challenges associated with a self-sustaining flying system.