Solar-powered airplanes: A historical perspective and future challenges

Zhu, Xiangwei; Guo, Zheng; Hou, Zhanqiang

doi:10.1016/j.paerosci.2014.06.003

Cited by 121 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The potential for power transmition to the aircraft from ground stations, via microwave or laser, has been studied, but it is still far from being operationally viable (Dickinson 2013). Currently, the main source of energy generation considered for HAPs is the Sun (Zhu et al 2014).…”

Section: Energy Generation and Storagementioning

confidence: 99%

High-Altitude Platforms - Present Situation and Technology Trends

d’Oliveira¹,

Melo²,

Devezas³

2016

J.Aerosp. Technol. Manag.

171

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High-altitude platforms (HAPs) are aircraft, usually unmanned airships or airplanes positioned above 20 km, in the stratosphere, in order to compose a telecommunications network or perform remote sensing. In the 1990 and 2000 decades, several projects were launched, but very few had continued. In 2014, 2 major Internet companies (Google and Facebook) announced investments in new HAP projects to provide Internet access in regions without communication infrastructure (terrestrial or satellite), bringing back attention to the development of HAP. This article aims to survey the history of HAPs, the current state-of-the-art (April 2016), technology trends and challenges. The main focus of this review will be on technologies directly related to the aerial platform, inserted in the aeronautical engineering field of knowledge, not detailing aspects of the telecommunications area.

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Section: Energy Generation and Storagementioning

confidence: 99%

High-Altitude Platforms - Present Situation and Technology Trends

d’Oliveira¹,

Melo²,

Devezas³

2016

J.Aerosp. Technol. Manag.

171

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“…The high altitude platforms (e.g., balloons) provide a large coverage that can improve connectivity among nodes [150,151], hence improving the routing performance. The low altitude platforms (e.g., helikites [152]) provide a small coverage that can improve local connectivity among nodes [153]. Further investigation could be pursued to investigate how UAVs can collaborate with high and low altitude platforms to improve routing performance.…”

Section: Improving Network Coverage By Using High and Low Altitude Uavsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Routing Schemes in FANETs: A Survey

Khan

Yau

Noor

et al. 2019

Sensors

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Flying ad hoc network (FANET) is a self-organizing wireless network that enables inexpensive, flexible, and easy-to-deploy flying nodes, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to communicate among themselves in the absence of fixed network infrastructure. FANET is one of the emerging networks that has an extensive range of next-generation applications. Hence, FANET plays a significant role in achieving application-based goals. Routing enables the flying nodes to collaborate and coordinate among themselves and to establish routes to radio access infrastructure, particularly FANET base station (BS). With a longer route lifetime, the effects of link disconnections and network partitions reduce. Routing must cater to two main characteristics of FANETs that reduce the route lifetime. Firstly, the collaboration nature requires the flying nodes to exchange messages and to coordinate among themselves, causing high energy consumption. Secondly, the mobility pattern of the flying nodes is highly dynamic in a three-dimensional space and they may be spaced far apart, causing link disconnection. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of the limited research work of routing schemes in FANETs. Different aspects, including objectives, challenges, routing metrics, characteristics, and performance measures, are covered. Furthermore, we present open issues.

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“…Such a SoS view is helpful to understand that all requirements are essentially interdependent and the more advanced a product the more the development of new requirements over the product life cycle dominates the uncertainty calculation. This is especially true in an age where the growing interdependence of airframes with their (sub-)assemblies/components, such as the propulsion systems, and relevant industry infrastructure continuously raises new challenges [17][18][19][20][21][22]. Add to this the observation that, as in many other industries, the time between concept, prototype and operations is shrinking rapidly and we begin to sense why the accuracy of very early stage cost estimates play an increasingly significant role not only in the decision about whether to pursue opportunities, but also in the management of cost as a whole during the (shrinking) life cycles.…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty quantification metrics for whole product life cycle cost estimates in aerospace innovation

Schwabe

Shehab

Erkoyuncu

2015

Progress in Aerospace Sciences

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a b s t r a c tThe lack of defensible methods for quantifying cost estimate uncertainty over the whole product life cycle of aerospace innovations such as propulsion systems or airframes poses a significant challenge to the creation of accurate and defensible cost estimates. Based on the axiomatic definition of uncertainty as the actual prediction error of the cost estimate, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of metrics used for the uncertainty quantification of cost estimates based on a literature review, an evaluation of publicly funded projects such as part of the CORDIS or Horizon 2020 programs, and an analysis of established approaches used by organizations such NASA, the U.S. Department of Defence, the ESA, and various commercial companies. The metrics are categorized based on their foundational character (foundations), their use in practice (state-of-practice), their availability for practice (state-of-art) and those suggested for future exploration (state-of-future). Insights gained were that a variety of uncertainty quantification metrics exist whose suitability depends on the volatility of available relevant information, as defined by technical and cost readiness level, and the number of whole product life cycle phases the estimate is intended to be valid for. Information volatility and number of whole product life cycle phases can hereby be considered as defining multi-dimensional probability fields admitting various uncertainty quantification metric families with identifiable thresholds for transitioning between them. The key research gaps identified were the lacking guidance grounded in theory for the selection of uncertainty quantification metrics and lacking practical alternatives to metrics based on the Central Limit Theorem. An innovative uncertainty quantification framework consisting of; a set-theory based typology, a data library, a classification system, and a corresponding input-output model are put forward to address this research gap as the basis for future work in this field.

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Solar-powered airplanes: A historical perspective and future challenges

Cited by 121 publications

References 38 publications

High-Altitude Platforms - Present Situation and Technology Trends

High-Altitude Platforms - Present Situation and Technology Trends

Routing Schemes in FANETs: A Survey

Uncertainty quantification metrics for whole product life cycle cost estimates in aerospace innovation

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