Energy Management Strategy for Solar-Powered UAV Long-Endurance Target Tracking

In this study, two types of three-dimensional (3-D) flight-based energy management strategies for solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (SUAV) long-endurance target tracking are proposed. In SUAV dynamic modeling, we consider the influence of wind on SUAV kinematics. Aiming at the complexity of the long-endurance tracking, namely the long flight time and space spans, the influences of the wind, variations of temperature, air density and solar cell photovoltaic efficiency, and a finite battery capacity are considered in our modified SUAV energy model. Then, considering the mission flexibility, we design two types of energy management strategies that comprehensively utilize the solar energy, gravitational potential energy, and wind to address different situations. The proposed strategies can be divided into several stages in chronological order according to the solar irradiation conditions, electrical energy storage conditions, and relative motion relationships among the SUAV, target, and wind. We then design respective strategies for these stages. The core of our proposed energy management strategies is to design the corresponding objective functions in each stage and the switching conditions between adjacent stages. Finally, we verify our proposed strategies by comparison with the traditional 2-D tracking strategy in a 24-h target tracking mission, and the results show the validity of our proposed strategies.