Applicability of solar UAV maritime supervision

The solar UAV has the ability to stay in the air for a long time, can hover in the designated area, play the role of a fixed air platform, and can flexibly adjust the deployment position by virtue of its mobility. Compared with small and micro fixed-wing UAVs, rotor-wing UAVs and large and medium-sized fixed-wing UAVs, solar UAVs are suitable for performing maritime supervision tasks with long mission cycle (lasting for more than 1 week) in the middle and low latitude sea area, and the mission sea area is far away from land, islands and reefs, with large regional coverage.

The solar UAV with a wingspan of 60m is evaluated. It is suitable for carrying lightweight low-power mission loads with a weight of no more than 50kg and a power requirement of hundreds of W to 1kW. Its main working altitude is in the stratosphere where the air flow is relatively stable. It can provide airborne AIS communication terminals to carry out wide-area ship dynamic monitoring tasks in the deep and deep sea areas, carry communication relay loads to provide emergency communication, chain building and networking services, carry small sea-to-sea cable radar to provide sea-to-sea target cable, tracking and monitoring services, or develop optoelectronic loads suitable for solar UAVs with higher flight altitude (more than 20km), Provide sea surveillance, target verification and other services. The solar UAV covers a wide range of activities, with an average flight speed of about 100km/h, which can meet the requirements of tracking and monitoring low-speed civilian ships throughout the whole process. The mobility capacity of the UAV is more than 2000km in the day and night, and a small number of aircraft can meet the requirements of large area coverage and rapid arrival relative to ships. In addition, the solar UAV has a low take-off and landing speed and low requirements for takeoff and landing length, and can take off at inland airports. Compared with medium and large cruise law enforcement ships and manned aircraft, it has low life-cycle costs and great potential.