Never landing drone: Autonomous soaring of a unmanned aerial vehicle in front of a moving obstacle

Increasing endurance is a major challenge for battery-powered aerial vehicles. A method is presented which makes use of an updraft around obstacles to decrease the power consumption of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. A soaring flight controller has been developed that can autonomously soar while the unmanned aerial vehicle keeps its...

Never Landing Drone

Increasing endurance is a major challenge for battery-powered aerial vehicles. A method is presented which makes use of an updraft around obstacles to decrease the power consumption of a fixed-wing, unmanned aerial vehicle. Simulatory results have shown the conditions that the flight controller can fly in.<br/>The effect of a change in wind...