Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial and Ground Vehicles for Long-Term Operation
Mission Planning for A Multi-robot Team with Solar-Powered Charging Station
The video shows path plans and power allocation schedules designed for a multi-robot team in our indoor test environment. It includes a clip of three UGVs executing the planned paths accompanied with time-synchronized plots of each vehicle’s power and energy trends. In the first 35-40 seconds, all UGVs travel to the assigned objective points. The charging station will also harvest energy when traveling to its assigned points. In the remaining time, all UGVs rendezvous at the final point and the charging station charges the worker UGVs through the magnetic charging connectors. At the end of the mission, all assigned points are visited and each UGV obtains net energy gain.
Integrated Path Planning and Power Management for Solar-Powered Unmanned Ground Vehicles
This video begins with a brief objective summary and then presents a visualization of the scalar field construction process. Next, the video shows a path plan and power allocation schedule designed by the modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) for the indoor test environment, followed by a clip of a UGV executing the planned path with real-time tracked power and energy history. A comparative result following the same path under constant speed is provided to verify the improved performance from PSO algorithm.
Design, Modeling and Control of a Solar-Powered Quadcopter
This video presents the design, modeling, control, and experimental test of a solar-powered quadcopter to allow for long-endurance missions. We present the design of a large-scale quadcopter that incorporates solar energy harvesting capabilities. Based on the design results, we built the dynamical model of the customized quadcopter with analysis of the aerodynamic influence. A feedback control system is developed for the solar-powered quadcopter that takes into account the wind disturbance and is verified in virtual simulation examples. Flight tests with the prototype are presented to validate the theoretical basis of the solar-powered quadcopter.