Power Generation Calculation Model and Validation of Solar Array on Stratospheric Airships

Kaiyin Song, Zhaojie Li, Yanlei Zhang (), Xuwei Wang, Guoning Xu and Xiaojun Zhang
Additional contact information
Kaiyin Song: Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Zhaojie Li: Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Yanlei Zhang: Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Xuwei Wang: Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Guoning Xu: Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Xiaojun Zhang: Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-17

Abstract: Current stratospheric airships generally employ photovoltaic cycle energy systems. Accurately calculating their power generation is significant for airships’ overall design and mission planning. However, the power generation of solar arrays on stratospheric airships is challenging to model and calculate due to the dynamic nature of the airships’ flight, resulting in continuously changing radiation conditions on the curved surface of the airships. The power generated by the airship solar array was modeled herein through a combination of the flight attitude, spatial position, time, and other influencing factors. Additionally, the model was modified by considering the variation in photovoltaic conversion efficiency based on the radiation incidence angle, as well as the state of charge and power consumption of the energy storage battery pack. This study compared the measurement data of power generation in real flight tests with the calculation results of the model. The comparison showed that the results of the calculated model were highly consistent with the actual measured data. An average normalized root-mean-square error of 2.47% validated the accuracy of the newly built model. The generalizability and rapidity of the model were also tested, and the results showed that the model performed well in both metrics.

Keywords: stratospheric airships; solar energy conversion; model validation; near space; power generation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/20/7106/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/20/7106/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:20:p:7106-:d:1260713

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().