Selecting Prop,Motor and Gearbox for Solar UAV

Hey all,

I'm working on a Solar UAV and I am having trouble in selecting the perfect combination of motor,prop and gearbox. I read somewhere that for maximum efficiency the prop diameter should be 1/4th the wing span. Is it feasible to do that ? My wingspan is 3.2m so doesn't seem plausible. 

I'm planing to write a matlab script that will import motocalc's database and then I'll sort out motors according to my requirements. After that I'll multiply motor's efficiency with prop and gear box's efficiency to and maximize it. Other than this anyone has any ideas ?

Currently I've done power balance in matlab considering the efficiency to be constant for solar cells. Also the cruise power is assumed to be constant. Any inputs on that ? 

3691113883?profile=originalThis is the figure after I modeled the local solar energy and I imported all the parameters for my air frame. 

Any help would be highly appreciated. 

Thanks !

Regards,

Karan

 

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  • Theoretically what you did is true, but what I discovered when I built a prototype of mine was, that you will never have constant power on your solar cells.

    Also I don't think, that 1/4 would fit your plane, even if it seems to be true.(http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/google-kauft-drohnen-her...)

    Sorry for the german article.

    It seems like the prop they are using is almost 1/4 of the wingspan.

    But the point I'm interested in is, what cells you are using.

    When I looked for my cells,I got to a factory which build cells for space enviorment, and as you might imagine, they are not cheap.

    Greetings, Huhn

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