Ryerson solar plane flies solar powered!

[Bill B]

Hi Everyone,
Just sending TEMAC an update on our solar plane project. On Wednesday, Nov 4, we flew our 6.28m wingspan aircraft with solar cells installed for the first time at York Soaring near Arthur, Ontario. We stayed up for 5 hours 6 minutes and we were able to see the solar cells charging the batteries at times. Most of the flight was autonomous; the aircraft followed waypoints that we programmed from our laptop.

Ill try and get some photos and videos attached.

We want to thank TEMAC for your continuing support and interest in our projects, and others at Ryerson. Without you guys we wouldn't be able to do stuff like this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prgpJWbe0KM&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=SuperwakeLtd.

www.createv.ca
Bill (And Travis and Mike and Devin and Alton)

[sihinch]

Wow! Over 5hrs of flight - I hope you took it in turns to control the beast!? (I know, it was probably robopilot! )

Congrats Team!

[Frank v B]

Congrats guys.  Amazing work. 
Good hand-launch.

Frank

[Bill B]

Hi Guys!

This past week we did a 10 hour flight! Mostly robo-plane @sihinch!
The first video is some awesome footage from a DJI chase quad that we had up above. The second video is our view of the landing, 2.5 hours after sunset.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DQTexk3p0ab4T6mGV9HELjWwAuVrjF8n/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiiINGTNO1zMR-cDRJyUvZQmqcf3jimr/view?usp=sharing

Bill

[Bill B]

Some pictures after landing too!

[bfeist]

What an amazing achievement. Have you looked into airframe efficiency modifications? I see squared off wings and tail surfaces. Winglets and other shapes have greatly reduced drag and increased fuel efficiency in full-scale planes. We RC folks tend to think the same applies to scale planes but I haven't seen specific wind tunnel research on it. Might be worth a shot. You could mimic the wingtips and control surfaces of an ALES scale glider as a start. You could even 3d print end caps for your current airframe before undertaking more fundamental mods to see if they make a difference.

Ben

[travis-k]

Hey Ben,

Very good questions and suggestions. I'll explain our rational! I know it doesn't look like it, but the plane is actually the result of a complex optimization process which took into account the wing shape, aircraft weight, battery capacity, solar cell area, and even climate data. All of these things were considered in the optimization, when evaluating the power draw of the plane.

The airfoil we designed for this plane actually has two flat portions on the aft part of the upper surface, where the solar cells lay flat. This is so that if the wing bends in flight, the solar cells can bend with the wing, and we don't have a compound bending issue resulting in broken cells.

The most important thing for us is solar area - we need the most solar cells possible. Couple this with the fact that we have these flat segments in the airfoil, and it rules out any sort of taper to the wing. This is why it has a rectangular shape - which coincidentally makes it easier for us to manufacture, as we can use the same molds for all three sections of the wing (the two outboards and the inboard).

A quirk of the solar array is that its efficiency is tied to the worst-performing cell in the array - so say I cover a single one of the 96 solar cells, then the entire array performance will be ruined. This is why we opted to not include winglets - depending on the angle of the sun and the plane, the winglets could cast shadows on the cells near the tip which would hurt the solar performance. This is such a concern that we actually have to be mindful of the amount we deflect our ailerons, because they have solar cells on them as well! But I agree absolutely - winglets can help in a lot of situations, including R/C. It just so happens that this is at odds with the solar array in our case.

I hope this answered your questions!

All the best,
Travis

[bfeist]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. That makes a lot of sense. How frustrating that the circuit is such that the battery of solar cells only perform at the level of the weakest cell!

Perhaps a low profile end cap rather than winglet could be employed without interfering with the system at all. Something like this? https://file.espritmodel.com/airplanes/topmodel/albatros-275s6.jpg

Ben

[vicwhit]

Hi Team Ryerson!

I saw you on City News tonight. It is truly great to see the young guns doing great things. Your achievements to date are a prediction of your futures. Ever onward guys!

I bet everyone in TEMAC is proud.

Vic W.

[travis-k]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. That makes a lot of sense. How frustrating that the circuit is such that the battery of solar cells only perform at the level of the weakest cell!

Perhaps a low profile end cap rather than winglet could be employed without interfering with the system at all. Something like this? https://file.espritmodel.com/airplanes/topmodel/albatros-275s6.jpg

Ben

Yes, I think this makes a lot of sense for us! It has always been something on the "to-do" list, but never high enough. Now that the flight tests are winding down for the year, we may take another stab at it.

Hi Team Ryerson!

I saw you on City News tonight. It is truly great to see the young guns doing great things. Your achievements to date are a prediction of your futures. Ever onward guys!

I bet everyone in TEMAC is proud.

Vic W.

Hey Vic! Thanks a lot for your kind words. We really appreciate the support of the club, without which this would not have happened. We flew those 10 hours with the wings we earned at TEMAC