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Aerial High Altitude Wind Kite (H.A.W.K.)

Team members

Abhimanyu Arora (EPD), Joel Mauriths Kambey (EPD), Lee Ze Bin (EPD), Lee Wai Loon (ESD), Tan Junqing Joshua (ESD), Tan Xiang Hao (ISTD)

Instructors:

Yeo Si Yong, Dawn Tan, Georgios Piliouras

Writing Instructors:

Pang Yoke Kian Rachel

Teaching Assistant:

Eve Cheong Yew Kuan

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About Aerial Industries:

Founded in February 2016, in Lagos, Nigeria, Aerial Industries aims to provide a cheap solution to revolutionise agriculture in Africa. Using drones for farm work, helping farmers increase crop yield through seeding, applying fertiliser, crop protectants and enhancers (crop dusting). However, their operations often suffer downtime due to the lack of stable electricity to operate their drones and other equipment.

Our Objectives:

1) Provide clean, renewable and reliable source of energy for Aerial  Industries in off-grid areas.

 

2) Increase operational uptime when deployed for drone operations.

 

3) Reduce overall fixed costs incurred from power shortages.

   

 

Therefore, together with Aerial Industries, our team developed an Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) System that takes advantage of their existing fleet of drones and utilises wind energy to tackle the issue of power shortages in the areas of operations.

 

 

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Wind Data Analysis

We obtained 3 months worth of wind data (June, July and August 2019) from National Environment Agency (NEA) to analysis the conditions and nature of wind at various altitudes using R programming and ggplot2 library to obtain the optimal operational altitude. As evident in the graphs below, any altitude above 100 meters will have a wind speed of more than 5m/s, which is sufficient for our AWE system.

 

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Our Subsystems

Our Airborne Wind Energy System comprises of 3 main subsystems: parafoil kite, ground station and the control pod, each with a specific function.

 

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Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Analysis

We made use of CFD analysis to obtain the optimal parameters for the dimensions of the parafoil kite, achieving an increased lift-to-drag ratio of approximately 2.09, up from 1.08 from traditional aerofoil shape. 

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Compared to other AWE systems that are in development by other organisations, we opted for a 4 motor configuration which allows us to have full control of the roll, pitch and yaw of the parafoil kite. This translates to a more stable flight configuration without the need of implementing adaptive flight path control. We are able to utilise the pitch of the parafoil kite to maintain it at an optimal operational angle that produces the largest energy generation. 

 

 

 

Visualising of Operation Using Gazebo Simulator

The Gazebo simulator runs a python script that takes in user input of expected wind speed and desired operational tether angle to calculate the angle of attack of the parafoil kite and publishes the simulated flight path that the system will travel in one cycle.

 

Building Our Control Pod                                          

The following short video shows the process of building and assembling the physical control pod of the system. The control pod controls the movement of the parafoil kite by pulling and releasing the 4 bridle lines that are attached to the 4 corners of the parafoil kite.

 

   

 

 

Special Thanks to our Industry Partner

aerial industries logo
FEEDBACK

TEAM MEMBERS

student Abhimanyu Arora Engineering Product Development
student Joel Mauriths Kambey Engineering Product Development
student Lee Ze Bin Engineering Product Development
student Lee Wai Loon Engineering Systems and Design
student Tan Junqing Joshua Engineering Systems and Design
student Tan Xiang Hao Information Systems Technology and Design

© 2020 SUTD

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