Airborne solar radiation measurement using a small unmanned aircraft: New dataset

In the face of climate change, using solar radiation to power unmanned fixed-wing aircraft is a promising technology. At the design stage of the onboard photovoltaic installation, the amount of the harvested energy must be predicted properly. Flight trials of the uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) equipped with custom low-cost instrumentation based on BH1750 light sensors were performed to measure onboard the solar illuminance. Next, the data were used to indirectly estimate the available irradiance. The mathematical model of solar radiation was developed in MATLAB, and the results were compared with the experimental data collected. It was found that the imperfect cosine response of the sensors could affect the results at incidence angles >40°. The main contribution of the research is a new dataset that includes 30 flights realized during summer in Poland at latitude 52°N for various mission scenarios. The experiments were executed during overcast and clear sky conditions. The data are publicly available and might be used by solar aircraft designers.