Design and task management of a mobile solar station for charging flying drones

¹ Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering, E-JUST university, 21934 Alexandria, Egypt.
² Production Eng. & Mechanical Design Department, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
³ Electrical Engineering Department, Assuit University, Assuit, Egypt.

Abstract

This paper provides design and task management of the first stage of a project entitled “Fall-Army Worm (FAW) insect killer”. The project has three main stages: design and energy management stage, flying control of drone stage and detecting and killing FAW stage. The goal of this project is to detect and kill; without chemical methods; a harmful FAW insect which is rapidly spreading in Africa and Asia. This paper focuses on design of the first stage of the system, getting maximum power and controlling the energy of the system. A Photo Voltaic system with energy storage devices is proposed to be the source of power. A new algorithm to control the time scheduling of the killing and detection mission is proposed and its effects on the system’s energy and mission period are studied. A comparison between different methods for tracking the maximum power from PV panels is performed to choose the best (less time and high accuracy) method. The results of simulation indicate the effectiveness of the proposed maximum power tracking and task management system.