Dirigible UAV Power Plant Design

Abstract

Dirigibles have the ability to take off and land vertically, hover and maintain lift without consuming energy and can be easily deflated for packaging and transportation. As such, dirigibles are well suited for surveillance and surveyance missions such as rescue and aid operations after disasters. This paper reviews hybrid dirigible UAV design considerations and presents a novel hybrid power plant design. The hybrid power plant design consists of a 2-stroke 4cc glow engine in-line with a brushless DC motor/generator and variable pitch propeller capable of producing a maximum power output of 148.4W.