I want to make a UAV that can cross the Atlantic without much funding or approval. Structurally I am thinking of making the main structure out of paper, PLA for some structural components, and just welded together lithium ion batteries (if I learn to weld which wouldn't be that hard with that many batteries). For navigation, I probably wouldn't be able to communicate with it so I would just run off of GPS and develop some sort of accelerometer based autopilot system just hope for the best. I would like to capture the travel so I would like to attach a camera. Is there something keeping me from doing such thing (approval, funding?)
solar UAV that isn't expensive?
- Thread starter dlanm2u
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Horus Lupercal
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Approval, funding and lacking a decent plan.
You'd have to check with the FAA that you'd be able to let an amateur built pilotless drone fly itself across the Atlantic. Cos you'd be a danger to both air and sea traffic. It's a lot more difficult than just 'hoping for the best' when flying across an ocean. Do you know the power requirements to fly 3,000 miles non stop? The wing loading, power to weight, stress requirements during the frequent storms, how are you going to know it has arrived at its destination, what if it falls short and lands in the ocean, what if it goes long and crashes into someones house?
You'd have to check with the FAA that you'd be able to let an amateur built pilotless drone fly itself across the Atlantic. Cos you'd be a danger to both air and sea traffic. It's a lot more difficult than just 'hoping for the best' when flying across an ocean. Do you know the power requirements to fly 3,000 miles non stop? The wing loading, power to weight, stress requirements during the frequent storms, how are you going to know it has arrived at its destination, what if it falls short and lands in the ocean, what if it goes long and crashes into someones house?
What danger does a tiny (paper?) plane maybe like 1 x 1 meters at most and flying at 350-400 feet? To test how long it flies I'd just make it do loops above my house until it drops. I might attach a sim card to detect when it gets to land and anyway, it has a gps, it should stop when it gets to the location and if it crashes in the ocean, the worst that's there are maybe a few 18650 cells.
right?
right?
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This alone tells me you've done next to zero research.
And this.
And definitely this.
Dude. One of the many jobs I've had in the army involved flying/operating an MUAV called Desert Hawk. Each one cost roughly 11 grand, was about the size you're intending and built by Lockheed Martin (people who know what they're doing). It had a range of about 17 miles from its internal battery, couldn't be flown in the rain and at winds of much over 15mph. Now, from my own personal experience operating such equipment, a plane maybe 1x1 metres at most, flying around 250-400m (our usual altitude cos of the cameras and prop noise) can cause huge issues to other aircraft.
Please, google things like tiny quad copters shutting down international airports, unmanned drone near misses to civilian and military air traffic (including one almost bringing down a C-17). Or videos of them landing and hitting passers by, because regardless of how accurate you think you'll be, it won't land there, and you won't be there to guarantee the LZ will be clear of people.
Do that, and then ask me how dangerous it can be. We used to have to book an area of sky (called a ROZ) in which only we could operate, because it was that dangerous for it to fly around other aircraft.
Also. You can't just drop lithium ion batteries into the ocean. They're really really bad for the environment, hence why you're supposed to dispose of battery packs properly when you get rid of your phone / laptop / tesla.
Finally. Have you worked out the power draw vs power generation of your little project? I have a 150w solar panel on the roof of my van. It's pretty big. It doesn't (even on a good day) generate enough power to keep things like my laptop running indefinitely. Hence why I have a leisure battery set up, which provides roughly an hour or 2 of reserve power. Or I can turn the engine on.
I highly doubt any solar panel set up you can fit onto the upper surfaces of your UAV will provide enough power to charge the batteries whilst running the engine.
The current (and so far only) solar powered aircraft to cross the Atlantic took 71 hours. Your aircraft needs to run autonomously for at least that.
And remember, the Earth has this weird time period called night time, where solar panels don't work. You need enough reserve battery power to last you all night, cos it's not like you can land in the middle of the Atlantic and charge up from a wall socket. You also need more than that, incase the weather isn't exactly perfect the next day and the clouds are overhead (a surprisingly common occurrence in the N. Atlantic).
Have you worked out how much power you're going to need? Is it going to be sufficient to overcome the air speed currents oversea? Otherwise your UAV will go backwards. Into the water.
Until you can overcome these obstacles in a real way with actual solutions beyond 'what's the worst that can happen?', I'd say yes, you are being very, very optimistic.
And this.
And definitely this.
Dude. One of the many jobs I've had in the army involved flying/operating an MUAV called Desert Hawk. Each one cost roughly 11 grand, was about the size you're intending and built by Lockheed Martin (people who know what they're doing). It had a range of about 17 miles from its internal battery, couldn't be flown in the rain and at winds of much over 15mph. Now, from my own personal experience operating such equipment, a plane maybe 1x1 metres at most, flying around 250-400m (our usual altitude cos of the cameras and prop noise) can cause huge issues to other aircraft.
Please, google things like tiny quad copters shutting down international airports, unmanned drone near misses to civilian and military air traffic (including one almost bringing down a C-17). Or videos of them landing and hitting passers by, because regardless of how accurate you think you'll be, it won't land there, and you won't be there to guarantee the LZ will be clear of people.
Do that, and then ask me how dangerous it can be. We used to have to book an area of sky (called a ROZ) in which only we could operate, because it was that dangerous for it to fly around other aircraft.
Also. You can't just drop lithium ion batteries into the ocean. They're really really bad for the environment, hence why you're supposed to dispose of battery packs properly when you get rid of your phone / laptop / tesla.
Finally. Have you worked out the power draw vs power generation of your little project? I have a 150w solar panel on the roof of my van. It's pretty big. It doesn't (even on a good day) generate enough power to keep things like my laptop running indefinitely. Hence why I have a leisure battery set up, which provides roughly an hour or 2 of reserve power. Or I can turn the engine on.
I highly doubt any solar panel set up you can fit onto the upper surfaces of your UAV will provide enough power to charge the batteries whilst running the engine.
The current (and so far only) solar powered aircraft to cross the Atlantic took 71 hours. Your aircraft needs to run autonomously for at least that.
And remember, the Earth has this weird time period called night time, where solar panels don't work. You need enough reserve battery power to last you all night, cos it's not like you can land in the middle of the Atlantic and charge up from a wall socket. You also need more than that, incase the weather isn't exactly perfect the next day and the clouds are overhead (a surprisingly common occurrence in the N. Atlantic).
Have you worked out how much power you're going to need? Is it going to be sufficient to overcome the air speed currents oversea? Otherwise your UAV will go backwards. Into the water.
Until you can overcome these obstacles in a real way with actual solutions beyond 'what's the worst that can happen?', I'd say yes, you are being very, very optimistic.
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Maybe start with some DIY RC planes (after checking the what local laws are and where the safe spots are).
Once you have the RC plane equivalent of starhopper you can appreciate the difficulty of making an autonomous version that can cross one of the biggest oceans in the world.
I've made maneuverable and fun electric planes from foam insulation board.
Even a 2m glider with onboard raspberry pi camera. But it's still cruder than starhopper compared to something that could cross the Atlantic. (Still, under €10 in materials used for an airframe ain't bad)
Once you have the RC plane equivalent of starhopper you can appreciate the difficulty of making an autonomous version that can cross one of the biggest oceans in the world.
I've made maneuverable and fun electric planes from foam insulation board.
Even a 2m glider with onboard raspberry pi camera. But it's still cruder than starhopper compared to something that could cross the Atlantic. (Still, under €10 in materials used for an airframe ain't bad)
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It's not about your age or where you air your ideas. Do the research, pick apart your plan. Everytime you've said 'that'll do', is one more thing that'll go wrong that you haven't accounted for.
Want some advice on how to plan anything? Have a series of inputs and outputs and start at the end state.
Input:
What do you want to achieve?
Output
Fly across the Atlantic.
Now, look at every implication involved from that.
How far is that in a straight line?
Average flight speeds
Time at that speed to fly that distance
Power required to run engines for that time frame
Estimated power regeneration using solar cells
Weight of engines, batteries, solar panels, control and navigation equipment
Wing loading requirements to lift weight.
Structural requirements to support weight.
Materials required to make structure - cost -environmental suitability over the Atlantic (paper + rain water = crash)
Aircraft design - conventional - flying wing - quad copter advantages/ disadvantages of each?
Size of aircraft to fit inside critical components. Location of components to keep aircraft balanced around centre of lift and thrust.
Etc
Etc
Etc.
That took me about 5 minutes. There's a million other I could add, but you get my point.
Dude. No one minds you throwing ideas out like this. Hell, there's a turbojet powered flying wing design on this very forum. But he had thought of most issues and was looking at others to see if there was anything he'd missed and to offer external expertise.
You haven't put the real thought into it. For example, testing. With him, he was looking for somewhere to test it. So we looked at areas local to him that he could fly it safely away from restricted airspace and populated areas.
You wanted to just fly it over your house for 5 days until it fell out of the sky. What if you were asleep and it fell on someone? Your answer to that scenario is 'it's only small, how much damage could it do?'.
As soon as you said that, I knew you hadn't done much planning, because if you're going to leave that kind of an easy fix as a plot hole, then the remainder of your planning must have gaps everywhere
You can't just be flippant with this kind of project, especially with very likely and very easy to fix scenarios as it comes across like you've not thought anything through.
Want some advice on how to plan anything? Have a series of inputs and outputs and start at the end state.
Input:
What do you want to achieve?
Output
Fly across the Atlantic.
Now, look at every implication involved from that.
How far is that in a straight line?
Average flight speeds
Time at that speed to fly that distance
Power required to run engines for that time frame
Estimated power regeneration using solar cells
Weight of engines, batteries, solar panels, control and navigation equipment
Wing loading requirements to lift weight.
Structural requirements to support weight.
Materials required to make structure - cost -environmental suitability over the Atlantic (paper + rain water = crash)
Aircraft design - conventional - flying wing - quad copter advantages/ disadvantages of each?
Size of aircraft to fit inside critical components. Location of components to keep aircraft balanced around centre of lift and thrust.
Etc
Etc
Etc.
That took me about 5 minutes. There's a million other I could add, but you get my point.
Dude. No one minds you throwing ideas out like this. Hell, there's a turbojet powered flying wing design on this very forum. But he had thought of most issues and was looking at others to see if there was anything he'd missed and to offer external expertise.
You haven't put the real thought into it. For example, testing. With him, he was looking for somewhere to test it. So we looked at areas local to him that he could fly it safely away from restricted airspace and populated areas.
You wanted to just fly it over your house for 5 days until it fell out of the sky. What if you were asleep and it fell on someone? Your answer to that scenario is 'it's only small, how much damage could it do?'.
As soon as you said that, I knew you hadn't done much planning, because if you're going to leave that kind of an easy fix as a plot hole, then the remainder of your planning must have gaps everywhere
You can't just be flippant with this kind of project, especially with very likely and very easy to fix scenarios as it comes across like you've not thought anything through.
I know that I wouldn't be able to test it near me because of the 4 navy bases, 9 airports, a ton of class C/D/E airspace, and warning areas in the ocean surrounding me within 30 miles. Anything north of me is very populated city, airports, and military installations, west is more airports, forest, and military installations, east is restricted airspace and ocean and south is farmers who probably don't want planes crashing into their crops possibly with fire. Testing area, in my mind, is the first problem because even if there is something, you can't do anything with it without a place to fly it. (gone for dinner, maybe back in 2 hours?)