Harvesting solar energy onboard LTA systems: Modeling and design

In the present scenario, solar-powered Lighter-Than-Air-Platforms (LTAPs) find wide applications in the field of surveillance, air monitoring, line of sight communication, mapping of the earth’s topography. Accordingly, there are specified power requirements for the sensors integrated on such systems. A helium-gas filled LTA system may be an airship or tactical aerostat with variable size depending on type of sensor array and payload units deployed onboard. Interestingly, power generated through lightweight and flexible photovoltaic panels show degradation tendency in the presence of impact factors such as dynamic cloud footprints, wind disturbances, and inherent platform contour leading to Non-Uniform Illumination. Thus, destabilization effects of these degradation factors, towards onboard harvested solar energy. Novelty lies in design for environmental factors such as clouds and winds for solar power computations onboard LTA systems. PV efficiency considering impact of wind velocity disturbances on contoured LTA platform is observed as 89.44 %. An efficiency drop of 22.06 % is reported under the prevailing cloud shadows on the Lighter Than Air system. This paper presents a novel systematic methodology to accurately compute the deficit energy under the prevailing conditions for Lighter Than Air systems.