The Flying Dutchman : Solar Powered RC Plane
Independent Project
Summer 2011 - Summer 2012
I received two consecutive grants from the Gwen Edith Herzig Academic Enrichment Fund to design, build, and fly a remote controlled solar powered airplane with my three best friends during the summers after our Junior and Senior years in high school.
For me, this project was a crash course in team leadership and organization: our team did not have an advisor, and none of us had ever organized a project on our own. I generally took the lead on custom manufacturing, such as making removable hatches for aileron servos, iterating motor mount designs, and using a homemade vacuum forming tool to make cooling vents.
CUTTING SOLAR PANELS ON HOMEMADE TABLE SAW
SOLDERING SOLAR PANELS IN PLACE
This project was our first experience with solar power, and we learned through experience: we plowed through stacks of solar panels to understand and optimize performance characteristics and manufacturing techniques. We developed a method of laminating the solar panels to increase their robustness without sacrificing efficiency, cutting them ourselves with a homemade solar panel table saw.
MOTOR, BATTERY, AND MPPT PACKAGED INSIDE
LAUNCHING THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
We used an on-board MPPT system to regulate the power generated by the solar panels between the battery and the motor, and came up with a method of laminating the solar panels to increase their robustness without sacrificing efficiency, cutting them ourselves with a homemade solar panel table saw.
Besides achieving our goal of completely solar powered flight and learning about aeronautics and solar power, our project inspired the Collegiate Science and Engineering Research Program, where students can get credit for extracurricular research projects spanning their Junior and Senior years. For more information, visit the project website.