Energy Harvesting (EH) for Small Air Vehicles

Orbital Research will develop a tightly integrated photovoltaic cell and battery energy storage subsystem and flight test the system on a micro air vehicle (MAV). This energy harvesting (EH) technology, efficiently packaged, will also save weight by serving as a structural element of the MAV’s airframe.. By using high efficiency photovoltaic cells packaged with high energy density batteries the mission capability of MAVs will be dramatically increased. A power management system will also be integrated into this structural package to manage the health of the system and to report on its condition to the MAV’s global power management system. The EH system’s tight integration of solar cells and batteries will provide enough added power to significantly extend the MAV’s mission duration beyond the capability of batteries alone. Upon successful completion of this program, Orbital Research envisions the integrated photovoltaic cells, battery and power management will be a plug-and-play subsystem for multiple MAV platforms. Thus, MAV integrators will be able to include this technology into their MAV airframes to optimize power management and mission flexibility.