Development of multiple hybrid power package to increase the endurance of mini unmanned aerial vehicles

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are systems are becoming more and more popular with new missions and purposes. Recently, the use of mini-UAVs has been one of the most popular type in the UAV classes due to their advantages in many aspects such as certification, production, cost. In this study, a modularly structured multiple sourced hybrid power system is developed to overcome the main problems of mini-UAVs related to short range. New algorithms are developed for hybrid structures utilizing and integrating hydrogen-powered fuel cell, lithium polymer battery, solar panel and supercapacitor systems. The hybrid propulsion system modules are integrated by a power management system (PMS) that supervises and synchronizes the operation of the system to optimize the powering operation. The ground tests of the propulsion system are carried out under static and dynamic load cases. The details provided includes the results of the proposed two hybrid models that are evaluated within the scope of the study. As a result of the study, it is observed that the proposed PMS algorithm-based hybrid system increases the flight range of the model mini-UAV more than 3 times compared to the conventional type of system using a battery pack-based power module. In addition, it is concluded that the use of fuel cells with appropriate supercapacitors is beneficial in terms of reliability and battery performance, due to the low power density available.