Reorienting the Solar Wing of a Landed MAV for Recharge via Dual Vectored-Thrust Control

The flight endurance of microaerial vehicles (MAVs) is severely limited due to their size, weight, and power constraints. Integrating solar energy into MAVs shows promise in addressing this issue, and thus they would be capable of landing, recharging, and takeoff again. This presents a challenge: the potential capsizing of the solar wing during landing, which could notably impede the subsequent recharging. To address this, a vehicle with autonomous self-righting control is preferred, which has rarely been explored in previous studies. In this work, we introduce a solar-powered MAV (SMAV) with dual vectored thrust, which not only achieves hover and cruise, but can also perform self-righting to ensure recharging. The SMAV uses a battery to store solar energy when there is sufficient sunlight. In case of capsizing, namely, when solar charging temporarily halts, the self-righting controller can then be activated based on terrain and landing attitude. We have made a prototype of SMAV and conducted experiments for functional validation. As a result, besides stable flight in hover and cruise conditions, it demonstrates the self-sustaining capability to maintain solar charging under diverse environmental conditions such as on flat ground, slopes, or water surfaces. This functionality further broadens the potential applications of MAVs in such a configuration.