Feasibility Study for Hale UAV fixed wing configuration

Abstract

Satellites or manned aircraft are the most common platforms used for remote sensing and global monitoring applications. They have distinctive advantages such as global coverage and high update rates (for satellites) or high spatial resolution and precision combined with great flexibility (for manned aircraft). However, they also have some drawbacks like imprecise georeferencing (for satellite data) or potential delays due to air traffic or eather conditions (for aircraft). The technological evolution of the last ten years is driving a novel platform into the scene: the High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (HALE UAV). It offers a combination of the advantages of airborne and spaceborne platforms while minimizing their disadvantages. Flying above air traffic at stratoshperic advantage of holes in the cloud cover. For example, in response to the demand of the remote sensing market, the continuous availability of the HALE UAV therefore allows to produce high resolution images at a regional coverage. This combination is neither accessible from airborne or spaceborne platforms. The fist ones cover a local aera with a high resolution and the second ones have a global coverage with inferior resolutions. Another important benefit of HALE UAVs is the excellent balance capability which opens new possibilities for continuous event monitoring with update rates of less than 30 min. Due to all this advantages, a growing interest, also within the German Aerospace Center (DLR), has arisen to perform research both on platform technologies and the potential applications of HALE. As a result, a feasibility study has been conducted within the company and some of its results are exposed in the present paper.