Lin, Victor P.

Autonomous Soaring

This viewgraph presentation reviews the autonomous soaring flight of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). It reviews energy sources for UAVs, and two examples of UAV's that used alternative energy sources, and thermal currents for soaring. Examples of flight tests, plans, and results are given. Ultimately, the concept of a UAV harvesting energy from the atmosphere has been shown to be feasible with existing technology.