Study of solar-powered aircraft configuration beneficial to winter flight

To address the problem of weak solar radiation intensity in winter, a new solar-powered aircraft configuration is put forward and studied. The general solar-powered aircraft configuration is summarized. The models of solar radiation intensity and energy power system are built. Aircraft characteristics of aerodynamic, power, weight, and optimal wing's deflection angle are analyzed, and a general-parameters design method for the new solar-powered aircraft configuration is introduced which is used to study the design parameters of the aircraft configuration. The results show that the existence of the wing's deflection angle can effectively improve the solar radiation intensity that the aircraft receives. The optimal wing's deflection angle is between 7.4° and 9.5°, changing by time. The optimal aspect ratio of the end-plates is around 5. The optimal area ratio of the end-plates to wing is 0.09. The optimal maximum allowable lift coefficient of the end-plates is 1.1. The new configuration solar-powered aircraft can decrease the total area by 44.2% as compared with the normal solar-powered aircraft configuration, which shows its obvious superiority.