Autonomous drone charging station planning through solar energy harnessing for zero-emission operations

ElSayed, Mo; Foda, Ahmed; Mohamed, Moataz

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2022.104122

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…In parallel, ElSayed et al looked into the deployment of a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) across future smart cites as another approach to the reduction in GHG emissions [20]. To that end, a DT of a real-world metropolitan city was first established in this study, incorporating the LiDAR city model, the 3D GIS model, the origin-destination matrix of the UAVs, the utilizable air space, as well as the solar exposure profiles.…”

Section: Application Of Dt To Sustainable Cities Under Climate Change...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Twin of Interwoven Urban Systems: A New Approach to Future Resilient and Sustainable Cities

Sun,

2023

Applied Sciences

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Section: Application Of Dt To Sustainable Cities Under Climate Change...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Twin of Interwoven Urban Systems: A New Approach to Future Resilient and Sustainable Cities

Sun,

2023

Applied Sciences

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“…Inspection and maintenance tasks on the electrical grid require large batteries to support the payload and autonomy of the cameras or manipulator, and commercial multirotor drones are typically limited to minutes of flight before the battery runs out, limiting autonomous operations in rural areas. As such, there is growing concern about energy consumption [8][9][10][11][12] and the availability of charging stations [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] for extended maintenance and inspection tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Charging Station on Overhead Power Lines for Autonomous Unmanned Drones

Muñoz-Gómez,

Marredo-Píriz,

Ballestín-Fuertes

et al. 2023

Applied Sciences

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Innovative drone-based technologies provide novel techniques to guarantee the safety and quality of power supply and to perform these tasks more efficiently. Electric multirotor drones, which are at the forefront of technology, face significant flight time limitations due to battery capacity and weight constraints that limit their autonomous operation. This paper presents a novel drone charging station that harvests energy from the magnetic field present in power lines to charge the drone’s battery. This approach relies on a charging station that is easy to install by the drone on an overhead AC power line without modifying the electrical infrastructure. This paper analyses the inductive coupling between the energy harvester and the power line, electrical protection, the power electronics required for maximum power point tracking and the mechanical design of the charging station. A drone that perches on a cable, an end effector for installation procedures and the charging maneuver are described, along with discussion of the robotic and electrical tests performed in a relevant environment. Finally, a lightweight drone charging station capable of harvesting 145 W of power from a 600 A line current is reported.

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“…Accordingly, a UAV needs to fly to a nearby charging station or battery ex-change facility to replace the battery if it will deplete its battery power before reaching its destination. Although charging station planning for UAVs was proposed in the literature to maximize UAVs' coverage range and minimize the total cost of energy and decarbonization [19], flying to a charging station or battery exchange facility for battery charging still causes an inconvenience and adds additional time and power consumption for UAVs that require constant or long-duration operation, such as logistics service and passenger UAVs. It is very likely that a large number of UAVs will need to be charged at the same time in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Electric Vehicle Assisted Charging Mechanism for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Huang

Cheng

2023

Electronics

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The global greenhouse effect and air pollution problems have been deteriorating in recent years. The power generation in the future is expected to shift from fossil fuels to renewables, and many countries have also announced the ban on the sale of vehicles powered by fossil fuels in the next few decades, to effectively alleviate the global greenhouse effect and air pollution problems. In addition to electric vehicles (EVs) that will replace traditional fuel vehicles as the main ground transportation vehicles in the future, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have also gradually and more recently been widely used for military and civilian purposes. The recent literature estimated that UAVs will become the major means of transport for goods delivery services before 2040, and the development of passenger UAVs will also extend the traditional human ground transportation to low-altitude airspace transportation. In recent years, the literature has proposed the use of renewable power supply, battery swapping, and charging stations to refill the battery of UAVs. However, the uncertainty of renewable power generation cannot guarantee the stable power supply of UAVs. It may even be very possible that a large number of UAVs need to be charged during the same period, causing congestion in charging stations or battery swapping facilities and delaying the arranged schedules of UAVs. Although studies have proposed the method of that employing moving EVs along with wireless charging technology in order to provide electricity to UAVs with urgent needs, the charging schemes are still oversimplified and have many restrictions. In addition, different charging options should be provided to fit the individual need of each UAV. In view of this, this work attempts to meet the mission characteristics and needs of various UAVs by providing an adaptive flight path and charging plan attached to individual UAVs, as well as reducing the power load of the renewable power generation during the peak period. We ran a series of simulations for the proposed flight path and charging mechanism to evaluate its performance. The simulation results revealed that the solutions proposed in this work can be used by UAV operators to fit the needs of each individual UAV.

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Autonomous drone charging station planning through solar energy harnessing for zero-emission operations

Cited by 14 publications

References 68 publications

Digital Twin of Interwoven Urban Systems: A New Approach to Future Resilient and Sustainable Cities

Digital Twin of Interwoven Urban Systems: A New Approach to Future Resilient and Sustainable Cities

A Novel Charging Station on Overhead Power Lines for Autonomous Unmanned Drones

An Electric Vehicle Assisted Charging Mechanism for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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