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Technical Paper

A Methodology for Predicting Solar Power Incidence on Airfoils and their Optimization for Solar Powered Airplanes

2013-09-17
2013-01-2320
Since the recognition of the influence of human activity on climate change due to increasing use of fossil fuel energy, significant efforts are being devoted towards the development and implementation of renewable energy technologies that are harmless to the environment. One of the abundant energy sources is the sun. There are currently two primary ways of harvesting energy from the sun: through photovoltaic (PV) panels and through thermal collectors. With the evolution of unmanned air vehicles (UAV), as well as the growing interest in “Green Aviation,” the interest in investigating the usage of PV solar panels in certain category of aircrafts has increased in the last two decades. In a small UAV or low speed personal transportation aircraft, the wings of the airplane could possibly be covered with photovoltaic panels to harness sun's energy for propulsion.
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