Flight mechanical analysis of a solar-powered high-altitude platform

Abstract The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is currently developing an unmanned experimental solar-powered fixed-wing high-altitude platform designed to be stationed in the stratosphere for several days and to carry payload for earth observation missions. This paper deals with a flight mechanical analysis of the aircraft within the preliminary design phase. For this purpose, it briefly describes all disciplines involved in the preliminary design and gives an insight into their methods used. Subsequently, it presents an assessment of the aircraft in terms of stability and control characteristics. Doing so, it first deals with a dynamic stability investigation using a non-linear 6-degrees-of-freedom flight dynamic model with a simple quasi-stationary approach to account for flexibility, in which the aerodynamic derivatives are given for different airspeed-dependent flight shapes. The investigations show that the aircraft is naturally stable over the complete flight envelope. It does not have a typical short period mode. Instead, the corresponding mode involves altitude and airspeed changes to a large extent. At low airspeeds, the Dutch roll and spiral modes couple and form two non-classical modes. Second, it presents a control surface design evaluation process for the aircraft based on a flight mechanical requirement. This requirement addresses the necessary control authority to counteract the aircraft’s responses due to gust encounters to not exceed afore-defined limits and to prevent the aircraft from entering a flight condition that it cannot be recovered from.