The U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and Naval Research Laboratory completed a nine-year study testing the Path Optimization flight-planning software on an unmanned aerial vehicle in the North Slope of Alaska.
Path Optimization, or POTION, exceeded expectations in providing trajectory planning for energy-focused missions of Platform Aerospace‘s Vanilla UAV in the Arctic Circle, the Navy announced Tuesday.
The “energy-aware” flight research initially tested POTION in 2014 on the Hybrid Tiger UAV, which combined renewable power harvesting technologies from hydrogen fuel cell, solar and atmospheric wind. The program was backed by the Department of Defense Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund and Operational Energy Prototyping Fund.
The Vanilla UAV was able to go past its maximum flight endurance of 10 days with the help of POTION’s recommended routes which are based on weather forecasts from the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.
“A glider’s efficiency is quantified by its judicious energy utilization, a stark contrast to the combat efficiency metrics applied to fighter aircraft. Similar to transport planes, gliders aim to traverse vast distances with minimal fuel consumption,” said project lead Vladimir Dobrokhodov, NPS associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Over a meticulous nine-year collaboration between NPS and NRL, innovative approaches have been developed to optimize efficiency of long endurance aircraft.”