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Design of a Solar Power Management System for an Experimental UAV

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems · November 2009

DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2009.5310303 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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Design of a Solar Power
Management System for an
Experimental UAV
JAW-KUEN SHIAU, Member, IEEE
DER-MING MA
PIN-YING YANG
GENG-FENG WANG
JHIJ HUA GONG
Tamkang University
The design of a solar power management system (SPMS) for
an experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is summarized.
The system will provide power required for the on-board
electronic systems on the UAV. The power management system
mainly consists of the maximum power point tracking (MPPT),
the battery management, and the power conversion stages. The
MPPT stage attempts to obtain the maximum power available
from the solar cell panels. The battery management stage
monitors and controls the charge and discharge processes of
the Li-Ion polymer battery modules. The last stage is for power
conversion that consists of dc/dc synchronous buck converters to
generate +5 V and +12 V powers for the on-board computers
and other electronic circuitries.
Manuscript received January 24, 2007; revised February 18 and
July 10, 2008; released for publication August 5, 2008.
IEEE Log No. T-AES/45/4/935097.
Refereeing of this contribution was handled by W. Polivka.
This research was supported by the National Science Council,
Taiwan, Republic of China, under Grant NSC94-2212-E-032-005.
Authors’ current addresses: J-K. Shiau, D-M. Ma, P-Y. Yang, Dept.
of Aerospace Engineering, Tamkang University, 151 Ying-Chuan
Road, Tamsui, 25137 Taiwan, E-mail: (shiauj@mail.tku.edu.tw);
G-F. Wang, Formosa Plastic Associate Company, Taiwan; J-H.
Gong, Lite-ON Technology Corporation Company, Taipei, Taiwan.
0018-9251/09/$26.00 °
c 2009 IEEE
1350 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 45, NO. 4
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I. INTRODUCTION
Solar power, without a doubt, is the cleanest
energy in the world. Usages of solar energy are
widespread in industry, commercial, and military
applications [1—5]. It will gradually become one of
the primary energy supply resources in the future.
This paper discusses the design of a solar power
management system (SPMS) for an experimental
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Solar-powered
UAV possesses broad research value for technology
development and commercial applications. A
solar-powered UAV could in principle stay overhead
indefinitely as long as it had a proper energy-storage
system to keep it flying at night. The design of
the power management system for such aircraft is
challenging due to possible rapid attitude changes
during maneuvers.
The solar power is not an ideal energy source. The
solar cell panels can only generate power at certain
times of the day. So the most important consideration
for using the solar power is to maximize the utility
of the solar power while it is available. To ensure
that the maximum available power is received from
the solar panel, a certain type of maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) algorithm [6—11] is usually
incorporated into the SPMS. A comparative study of
MPPT algorithms that could be easily implemented
in a low-cost microcontroller is reported in [12]. The
incremental conductance algorithm [6] can efficiently
track the maximum power point under rapidly
changing atmospheric conditions. The efficiency of
the incremental conductance algorithm, as reported in
[12], can be in excess of 97%. In this research, we
implement the incremental conductance algorithm
and use the natural sunlight as the irradiance source
to conduct the MPPT test.
Since solar cells can only generate power at certain
times of the day, a storage element is required in
all solar power systems. The most common form
of the energy storage for the stand alone solar
power system is battery technology. The basic
functions of the battery management are to control
the charge/discharge of the battery, to protect the
battery from damage, to prolong the life of the battery,
and to maintain the battery in a state to fulfill the
functional requirements. Battery management systems
for a solar power system with lead acid battery are
discussed in [13], [14]. Although the lead acid is
widely used in the industry, it is not considered to
be suitable for UAV application when weight and
volumetric capacity are taken into account. The
lithium-ion polymer battery is selected for this UAV
application study. The dynamic lithium-ion battery
models have been extensively studied recently as
reported in [15], [16] and the references therein.
Many applications require knowledge of the state
of charge (SOC) [17] of the battery for providing
OCTOBER 2009
the user with an indication of the capacity left in
the battery. This is important for optimizing the
charging process. Voltage and current based SOC
estimation can provide a rough indication of the SOC
of a battery, but for more precision, other factors
such as amplitude of the discharging current, age
of the battery, environment factors, and operating
history of the battery must be taken into account.
Correction for these factors can only be accomplished
with complex software by building a battery model
to replicate the battery characteristics. In [17] a
charge measurement circuit is designed to improve
the SOC estimation. It shows that the accuracy
of the required charge flow measurements can be
greatly improved by using a voltage to frequency
converter in conjunction with a digital counter to
integrate the measured battery current. In many
applications, multi-cell battery chains are required
to provide a higher operation voltage or power. A
charge equalization technique that utilizes a simple
isolated dc/dc converter with a capacitive output filter
along with a multi-winding transformer is proposed
in [18]. In [19] a battery management system consists
of a number of smart battery modules each of which
provides battery equalization, monitoring, and battery
protection to a string of battery cells. Complex charge
equalization circuitries are not considered to be
suitable for this particular application due to space,
weight, and power consumption considerations. The
battery management system proposed in this design
is different from those presented in [13], [14], and
[19]. It includes an auto-ranging power converter, a
charge controller, and lithium battery modules. The
microcontroller-based charge controller is designed to
control the auto-ranging power converter to maximize
the utility of the solar power. Two battery modules
with one serving as the charging module and the
other as the discharging module are used in this
design.
In this research, we focus on the design evaluation
of a SPMS for an experimental UAV application. The
battery management has to handle the rapid voltage
variations due to attitude changes during maneuvers.
To gain the quantitative idea of power variations
on rapid changing of the sunlight incident angle, a
servo-motor-driven experimental test bed is developed
to support the evaluation. Test results on the voltage
and power variations are presented and discussed.
The test results provide a good reference for the
sizing, power, weight, optimal flight path design, and
performance consideration for the development of a
fully solar powered UAV.
Design and function validation of an SPMS are
the primary purpose of this research. Therefore, the
obtained solar power is used to power some certain
on-board computers only. Power required for the
propulsion and control systems is not included in the
design. A much larger solar cell panel will be needed
SHIAU ET AL.: DESIGN OF A SOLAR POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL UAV
Authorized licensed use limited to: Tamkang University. Downloaded on January 27, 2010 at 20:38 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Fig. 1. Configuration of SPMS.
Fig. 2. Prototype of SPMS.
to power the complete system. The SPMS considered
in this research consists of three stages. The first
stage is the solar cell panels and the maximum power
tracker. The second stage is the battery management
system. The last stage is the power conversion
stage that includes dc/dc synchronous buck power
converters [20] to provide reliable +5 V and +12 V
power sources for on-board electronic systems.
II. SYSTEM OVERVIEW
The SPMS is designed to obtain electric energy
from the solar system and to make the required
power available for the on-board computers and other
electronic circuitries for an experimental UAV. The
overall system structure is depicted in Fig. 1. The
function validated prototype of the system is shown
in Fig. 2.
In this research, we use mono-crystalline solar
cells as the power source. To accommodate the
aircraft configuration, the solar cell panels are divided
into three panels, namely left wing, right wing, and
fuselage panels. Pictures of these solar cell panels are
shown in Fig. 3. Under a standard test condition, the
solar panels will generate a maximum power of up to
around 57.2 W. The maximum power point voltage
and current are around 30 V and 1.91 A, respectively.
The electric characteristics of each panel are list in
Tables I—III.
As shown in Fig. 1, the SPMS system is divided
into three stages. The first stage, MPPT, attempts to
increase the efficiency of the solar cells to obtain the
maximum power available from the solar cell panels.
The second stage, battery management, monitors and
controls the energy storage and delivery of the solar
power drawn from the solar cell panels. The third
stage, power conversion, converts input voltage to
+5 V and +12 V for the on-board electronics. The
functional considerations and designs for each stage
are discussed in the following sections.
1351
 Fig. 4. Equivalent circuit of solar cell.

nonlinear device and can be represented as a current

source model as shown in Fig. 4 [21]. Where Iph
is the equivalent current source, Rsh and Rs are the
equivalent shunt and series resistance of the material,
and D is the P-N junction diode.
The shunt resistance Rsh is much greater than the
series resistance Rs . Therefore, the output current IL
can be represented as [22]
· μ ¶ ¸
qVL
IL = Iph ¡ ID = Iph ¡ IO exp ¡1 (1)
KTA
where q is the charge of an electron, K is the
Fig. 3. Left wing panel (top), fuselage panel (center), right wing Boltzmann’s constant, A is the ideality factor of the
panel (bottom). P-N junction, T is the solar cell temperature (± K),
and Io is the reverse saturation current. The reverse
TABLE I saturation current is [22]
Left Wing Panel
· ¸3 · μ ¶¸
T qEGAP 1 1
Typical peak power 23.23 W Io = Irr exp ¡ (2)
Voltage at peak power 30.08 V
Tr KT Tr T
Current at peak power 0.772 A where Tr is the reference temperature, Irr is the
Short-circuit current 0.839 A
Open-circuit voltage 37.66 V
saturation current at Tr , EGAP is the band-gap energy
of the semiconductor used in the solar cell. The light
generated current source Iph is
TABLE II
Right Wing Panel Si
Iph = [Isso + Ki (T ¡ Tr )] (3)
100
Typical peak power 24.29 W
Voltage at peak power 30.10 V where Isso is the short-circuit current at reference
Current at peak power 0.807 A temperature, Ki is the short-circuit current temperature
Short-circuit current 0.872 A coefficient, Si is the insolation in mW/cm2 . So the
Open-circuit voltage 37.78 V output power from the solar cell can be expressed as
· μ ¶ ¸
qVL
TABLE III P = IL VL = Iph VL ¡ Io VL exp ¡ 1 : (4)
Fuselage Panel KTA
Output current and power at different insolations and
Typical peak power 9.686 W
Voltage at peak power 29.95 V
different temperatures for this particular solar power
Current at peak power 0.323 A panel are shown in Fig. 5.
Short-circuit current 0.341 A Each curve has a maximum power point as
Open-circuit voltage 37.84 V indicated in Fig. 5, which is the optimal operating
point for the efficient use of the solar cells at that
particular operating condition. In order to efficiently
III. MAXIMUM POWER POINT TRACKING use the solar cells, we attempt to force the solar cells
The electric power generated from the solar cells to operate at the maximum power point through
depends on the temperature and the solar radiation some mechanism called the MPPT. To clearly explain
conditions and the load electric characteristics. MPPT the operation of the MPPT mechanism, we pick an
is often used in photovoltaic systems to maximize operating curve and redraw the characteristic curve in
the solar panel output power, irrespective of the Fig. 6. Cleary, at maximum power point ¢P=¢V = 0.
temperature and irradiation conditions and of the We decrease the output voltage if ¢P=¢V < 0, and
load electrical characteristics. The solar cell is a increase output voltage while ¢P=¢V > 0.

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Fig. 5. Current and power characteristics of solar cell panels.
Fig. 6. Characteristic curve of solar cell.
Fig. 7. MPPT system.
The MPPT system consists of a pulsewidth
modulator (PWM), a MOSFET driver, a dc/dc
buck power converter, and a micro-controller
(PIC18F452 in this design). The block diagram of
the MPPT system is shown in Fig. 7. The main
idea is to continuously adjust the voltage at the
load terminal by controlling the duty cycle of the
PWM regulator. A commonly used MPPT algorithm
includes perturbation and observation method [8],
incremental conductance technique [6, 9], and
fuzzy logics [7, 10, 11]. In this design, we use the
incremental conductance technique to implement the
MTTP function. Development of the MPPT algorithm
is not within the scope of our design. We are not
attempting to compare the differences among the
MPPT algorithms. In order to provide sufficient
current needed for controlling the switching transistor
SHIAU ET AL.: DESIGN OF A SOLAR POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL UAV
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Fig. 8. MOSFET driver.
Fig. 9. Functional block diagram of battery management system.
and limiting the drain-source voltage of the switching
transistor, the MOSFET driver circuit proposed in [23]
is adapted for this design. The driver circuit is shown
in Fig. 8. This driver circuit is also used in the second
stage for battery management.
IV. BATTERY MANAGEMENT
The battery management system monitors and
controls the storage and delivery of the energy drawn
from the solar panels. The system block diagram of
the battery management system is shown in Fig. 9.
The system consists of three major subsystems,
namely the lithium battery modules, an auto-ranging
power converter, and a charge controller. The input
power of the battery management system comes from
the output of the MPPT system. The output of the
battery management system supplies the required
power to the power conversion system (the last stage
of the power management system) to provide all the
required power for the on-board computers and other
electronic circuitries.
The battery modules selected in this system
are Lithium ion (Li-Ion) polymer rechargeable
battery (HECELL company, battery model:
H6849D5-4800 mAh). A battery submodule consists
of three battery cells, the nominal voltage is 11.1 V.
The battery management system contains two battery
modules. Each module consists of four submodules,
arranged as shown in Fig. 10. It has a nominal voltage
1353
 Fig. 10. Construction of battery module.
Fig. 12. Charging/discharging circuitry for Li-ion battery.
of 22.2 V with 9600 mAh capability. The battery
modules and relay control structure are depicted in
Fig. 11. Initially, batteries 5—8 form as the discharging
module while batteries 1—4 serve as the charging
module. As shown in Fig. 11, to form the discharge
module, the 4-pole relay S10 is closed and relays S5 ,
S6 , S7 , and S8 are open.
Fig. 12 is the charging and discharging control
circuitry for the Li-ion batteries. In charging the
Li-ion battery, the battery is charged at a constant
current until the battery voltage reaches the maximum
voltage limit. The circuit then switches to voltage
regulation, allowing the current to taper to lower
values. Accurate voltage regulation is necessary to
Fig. 13. Constant current/constant voltage charging waveform.
put the maximum safe charge into the battery. In
constant current mode, we keep the voltage V1 at a
constant voltage through controlling the pulsewidth
of the PWM regulator in the auto-ranging power
converter. We adjust the pulsewidth of the PWM
regulator to maintain V2 at a constant level while in
constant voltage mode. To charge submodule 1, we
close the relay S1 with relays S2 and S9 open. On the
other hand, we need to close the relay S2 and open
the relays S1 and S9 to charge the battery submodule
2. The constant current/constant voltage charging
waveform is shown in Fig. 13. In discharging mode,
we close the relay S9 and open the relays S1 and S2 .
The discharge waveform is shown in Fig. 14.
The control circuitry for maintaining the constant
voltage or constant current charging for a particular Fig. 14. Li-ion battery discharging waveform.
battery submodule is shown in Fig. 15. The charge
current for constant current charging mode is
μ ¶ The resistance of RS connected to the battery for
VF R2 + R3 constant current control is 0:1 −. The voltage VF to
I= : (5)
RS R1 + R2 + R3 the charge controller for constant current regulation

Fig. 11. Li-ion battery modules and relay control structure.

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Fig. 15. Constant current/voltage control circuitry.
is maintained at 2.5 V through the charge controller
and the PWM regulation loop. If R1 = 100 k−, R2 =
1:96 k−, and R3 = 2:2 k− are selected, the charge
current I in (5) is maintained at 1 A. There are a
total of 8 battery submodules in the system. The 8-1
multiplexer is used to select the battery to charge.
The auto-ranging power converter consists of a
dc/dc power converter and a charge regulator. The
power converter selected in this system is a buck
type power converter, the same as the one for the
MPPT stage, due to the fact that most of the time
the voltage at the output of the MTTP stage is higher
than the required charge voltage. The charge regulator
is a microcontroller-controlled PWM regulator. The
charge voltage at the output of the power converter
is controlled by continuously adjusting the duty
cycle of the PWM pulse. It should be noted that
even most of the time the voltage at the input to the
converter is higher than the battery charge voltage
(12.6 V in this case), in some cases, such as when
sunlight to the solar panel is shaded or the incident
angle is too high, the voltage might be lower than
the required charge voltage. There are several ways to
cope with this issue. The simplest way is to terminate
the charging process once the input voltage is down
below a predetermined threshold, 14 V for instance.
This, however, leads to a waste of the solar power.
The better approach is to put a low voltage constraint
in the MPPT algorithm. That is, maintain the MPPT
output voltage at 14 V if it is lower than this limit. We
propose that both approaches should be implemented.
Yet another approach would be to design a buck-boost
type power converter to deal with the voltage
variations. To provide auto-ranging capability for
battery charging, the buck-boost converter would
not be just providing the regulation function only;
it would be a micro-processor controlled power
converter. Micro-processor controlled buck-boost
power converter is more complicated than the buck
type converter. However, it is worth implementing
the buck-boost converter to provide the auto-ranging
capability for a larger solar power system to maximize
the utility of the solar power.
The primary function of the charger controller
is to perform the monitoring and charge/discharge
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control of the batteries. The Microchip PIC18F4515
microcontroller is selected to do the required tasks.
The charge controller is able to measure the voltage
and current of each individual battery submodule.
The charge controller continuously monitors the
operating condition of the batteries to prevent them
from becoming overstressed. The constant current
followed by constant voltage scheme is implemented
for the charging process. To charge a battery, the
voltage of the battery is checked first. This is the
easiest way to determine the SOC if the current has
remained at zero long enough for the voltage to
stabilize. If the voltage is within the rechargeable
range, greater than 9 V and less than 12.6 V in this
design, constant current charging is initiated. The
constant voltage charging will be engaged once the
charge voltage reaches 12.6 V. Note that there is a
total voltage drop of about 0.3 V across the relay and
the current sensing resistor RS . The constant voltage
charging is a slow charging process. The charging
current during the constant voltage mode is much
smaller than the charging current during the constant
current period. The voltage drops across the relay and
RS are insignificant in the constant voltage charging
state due to small charging current. The charging
process will be terminated when the battery voltage
reaches the voltage limit 12.6 V. The terminal voltage
of the discharging module is checked periodically to
ensure the health of the batteries. Since two battery
submodules are connected in series to provide the
required power for the load, the discharging voltage
is kept at about 22.2 V. This voltage can be used as an
indication of the discharging state of the battery and
can be used to determine the cutoff point. To avoid
fully discharging the battery cells, a discharge warning
is set when the voltage reduces 19 V. At this point,
we exchange the charging and the discharging battery
modules to continue to supply the required power.
Space and weight are one of the strict limitations
for designing a power management system for
UAV application. Complex charge equalization
circuitries which usually involve switches, current
sensors, transformers, dc/dc converters, etc., are not
implemented in this particular design due to space,
weight, and power consumption considerations.
However, it should be taken into consideration when
designing a fully solar powered UAV with much
larger solar cell panels and equipment installation
space.
V. POWER CONVERSION
The power conversion system converts the voltage
level from 22.2 V at the battery end to +5 V and
+12 V for providing the required power to the
on-board computers and all other electronic circuitries.
In particular, the +12 V power source is used to
drive the relay circuitries in the battery management
1355
 Fig. 16. Synchronous buck power converter.

Fig. 19. MPPT experiment setup.

Fig. 17. (a) Q1 on, Q2 off. (b) Q2 on, Q1 off.

Fig. 18. Experimental test bed.

system. The simplified functional block diagram of

the synchronous buck converter used in this design is Fig. 20. Test results on 04/22/2006 (at 11:50).
shown in Fig. 16. It uses two N-type MOSFETs Q1
and Q2 to control the energy flow from source to the
load. Synchronous buck controller used in this design
is TPS40055 [24]. Detail design guidelines can be
found in the data sheets. The simplified circuit for the
inductor charging cycle is shown in Fig. 17(a). In this
state, the MOSFET Q1 is conducted and Q2 is turned
off. In inductor discharging state, the operation is
reversed as shown in Fig. 17(b). Stability analysis and
feedback controller design for this synchronous buck
power converter is quite standard and is not addressed
further in this paper. For detail design procedures
please refer to [24]. In this system, two converters are
designed for +5 V and +12 V power sources.

VI. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

In order to evaluate the design of power acquiring

from the solar cells and obtain some quantitative
idea of power variations on rapid changing of the
incident angle of the sunlight, a servo-motor-driven
experimental test bed is developed to support the
evaluation. The block diagram of the experimental
test bed is shown in Fig. 18. We control the sunlight
incident angle by rotating the test bed. During testing,
we record the rotating angle of the test bed and
voltage and current drawn from the solar cells.
Fig. 21. Test results on 04/22/2006 (at 12:15).
The physical setup for the MPPT experiment
is shown in Fig. 19. The results of the experiment
conducted on 22 April 2006 at Tamkang University
are shown in Figs. 20 and 21. The results show the
history of the measured voltage, current, power,
and incident angle. In this work, MPPT tests were
conducted with the incremental conductance MPPT

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algorithm using natural sunlight as the irradiance
source. The efficiency of the incremental conductance
algorithm has been reported to be as high as 89.9%
and 97.4% in [6] and [12], respectively. Temperature
measured on the solar cell panel is about 50± C while
the outdoor air temperature is 27± C. Fig. 20 shows
the evolution of the MPPT with partial shading of
the solar cell panel. Fig. 21 shows the results of the
rapid changes of the power when it suddenly (in about
1 min) became clouded.
Figs. 22—24 show the experimental results that
were conducted on September 1, 2006; the sky is
relatively clear with 32± C outdoor air temperature.
The temperature measured on the solar cell panel is
about 70± C. The power we obtained is lower than the
power that we got at the previous experiment due to Fig. 22. Test results on 09/01/2006 (at 13:01).
panel temperature changes. In this experiment, we
also vary the incident angle (Fig. 23) of the sunlight
by rotating the solar cell panel up to §45 deg with
an increment of 5 deg and stay at the same position
for 10 s. Three different loads (5 −, 10 −, and 15 −)
are used to conduct the test. The results show that
the solar power changes with the incident angle
correctly. To verify the extraction of the maximum
power, we take the power at zero degree incident
angles as the reference and times cos μ with μ varying
according to the experiment setup to generate a
simulated maximum power. Note that we assume
the sunlight irradiance keeps the same during the
experimental cycle (about 6 min). Then we compare
this simulated maximum power to the measured
maximum power. The results show that the system
still tracks the maximum power point quite well as
shown in Fig. 24. In Fig. 24, PSIM represents the
simulated maximum power taking the power at 0
incident angle as the reference then times cos μ. The Fig. 23. Power variations due to changes of sunlight incident
sunlight irradiance may vary during the test. In a angles. (15 − load starts from 12:10; 10 − load starts from 12:19;
5 − load starts from 12:42).
steady sunlight irradiance condition, as shown in
Fig. 24 with 10 − load, the maximum power almost
perfectly matches the simulated power.
The test results show that when the sunlight
incident angle varies from 0 to 45 deg, the power
drawn from the solar cells depends on the load
conditions and can have a reduction of up to some
30%. This implies that the changes of aircraft attitude
will directly affect the power obtained from the solar
system. This in turn will limit the pitch and roll
angles of the aircraft maneuver and must be taken into
consideration for optimal flight path design. The test
results also provide a good reference for the sizing,
power, weight, and performance consideration for the
development of a fully solar powered UAV.

VII. CONCLUSIONS
This paper discusses the design of an SPMS.
The system consists of solar power panels shaped to Fig. 24. Comparison of maximum power to simulated maximum
accommodate aircraft configuration, an MPPT system power.

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to increase operating efficiency of the solar cells, a [9] Singer, S., and Braunstein, A.
battery management system to monitor and control the Maximum power transfer from a nonlinear energy source
energy storage and delivery, and a power conversion to an arbitrary load.
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system to convert the power drawn from the solar
Distribution, 4 (1987), 281—287.
system to the using systems. An experiment system [10] Mashaly, H. M., Sharaf, A. M., Mansour, M. M., and
for MPPT evaluation is also developed to support the El-Sattar, A. A.
system design. The results will be used to improve Fuzzy logic controller for maximum power tracking in
the solar powered UAV configuration, propulsion, line-commutated photovoltaic inverter scheme.
and performance designs. Designs to incorporate the Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer
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the SPMS will manage the entire power requirement A fuzzy logic based photovoltaic peak power tracking
control.
for up to 600 W to support the UAV operation.
In Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on
The power bus structure provided in this paper Industrial Electronics, vol. 1, July 7—10, 1998, 300—305.
contains three power conversion stages in cascade. [12] Hohm, D. P., and Ropp, M. E.
The power efficiency of the overall system is the Comparative stusy of maximum power point tracking
combination of the efficiency of all of the three stages. algorithms.
This structure is useful for low power applications Progress in Photovoltics: Research and Applications, 11
such as UAV systems where we need to deal with (2003), 47—62.
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[23] Kohl, I. [24] Texas Instruments, Inc.
Examples of applications with the pulse width modulator Wide-input synchronous buck converter TPS40054,
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1998.

Jaw-Kuen Shiau (M’99) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical
engineering and electronic engineering from Chung Yuan Christian University,
Taiwan, in 1981 and 1983, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, in 1995.
Dr. Shiau had worked in industry and government laboratory on high
performance fighter aircraft flight control system design for over 10 years. Since
1997, he has been with the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Tamkang
University, Tamsui, Taiwan. His research interests include robust control, flight
control system design, avionics system design and integration for UAV and solar
power management system for UAV.

Der-Ming Ma received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in aeronautical engineering

from Chung Cheng Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan. In 1988, he
received the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor.
He is presently Associate Professor of the Department of Aerospace
Engineering, Tamkang University, Taiwan. He currently works on system design
of solar-powered UAV, optimal atmospheric flight trajectories, and guidance,
navigation and control.

Pin-Ying Yang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in aerospace engineering from
Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan, in 2003 and 2007, respectively.
His research interests include power electronics, solar power management
system, and applications of embedded systems.

SHIAU ET AL.: DESIGN OF A SOLAR POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL UAV 1359

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 Geng-Feng Wang received the B.S. and M.S. degree in aerospace engineering
from Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan, in 2003 and 2006, respectively.
He is currently a facilities maintenance engineer at Formosa Plastic Associate
Company. His research interests include power electronics, solar power
management system, applications of embedded systems, maximum power point
tracking, Li-ion battery power management, and power converter systems.

Jhih-Hua Gong (also known as Chih-Hua Kung) received the B.S. degree in
automation engineering from National Formosa University, Taiwan. He received
the M.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Tamkang University, Taiwan in
2004.
Since graduation, he has been working in design of uninterrupted power
systems, solar-power inverters, and switching-power supplies. He is currently
a senior engineer at Lite-ON Technology Corporation Company, Taiwan. His
research interests include power electronics, solar power management system,
applications of embedded systems, and wireless sensor networks.

1360 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 45, NO. 4 OCTOBER 2009

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