High Altitude UAV Development and Flight Testing

摘要

A high altitude flying wing UAV is presented together with test flights performed in Finland in July, 2014 and June, 2015 in support of European Space Agency (ESA) Earth surveillance missions. The UAV uses an innovative inertial autopilot, which is able to automatically steer the flying wing UAV from 30 km altitude to targets placed at several hundred kilometers with meters accuracy. The detailed system is presented together with the communication capabilities from high altitude and long ranges. It is also presented the capability to fly automatically without high altitude GPS capability. Various applications are envisioned for the high altitude flying wing UAV beyond the support for automatic payload recovery. These applications take advantage of the high efficiency design and high precision (5-10 meters) achievable at long ranges (600 km range). The developed high altitude UAV is useful for a wide range of high altitude balloon missions and can reduce or even elliminate the complicated logistics associated with recovery of high altitude balloon missions. At the same time the system opens opportunities for missions in difficult environments (e.g.: Arctic, Antarctica, small islands etc.) where otherwise the recovery would pose complicated problems.