Design of a Solar Power Management System for an Experimental UAV

The design of a solar power management system (SPMS) for an experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is summarized. The system will provide power required for the on-board electronic systems on the UAV. The power management system mainly consists of the maximum power point tracking (MPPT), the battery management, and the power conversion stages. The MPPT stage attempts to obtain the maximum power available from the solar cell panels. The battery management stage monitors and controls the charge and discharge processes of the Li-ion polymer battery modules. The last stage is for power conversion that consists of dc/dc synchronous buck converters to generate +5 V and +12 V powers for the on-board computers and other electronic circuitries.