A Feasibility Verification Scheme with Flight Analysis for Balloon-borne Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The near-space Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(SP-UAV) has broad prospects in applications such as mapping, detection and communication, owing to its High Altitude Long-Endurance (HALE) performance. Adopting balloon-borne to launch the SP-UAV is a promising and challenging technology, which has the advantages of reducing the weight coefficient of the structure, and solving the problem of long time to climb to the cruising altitude. However, the harsh high-altitude experimental environment makes it difficult to verify the feasibility of launching UAV by balloon. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of transforming a scale model prototype into a low-altitude design under the same Reynolds number, and verify the feasibility of launching a balloon-borne UAV through experiments. Firstly, a simulation model is established to analyze the launch range, with the effect of the wind on launching is considered. Secondly, the corresponding test scheme is formulated and the launch test is conducted. Simulation and experimental results show that the balloon-borne launching method is feasible and the optimal range of the conditions is proposed.