SolarBubbles + Fuel Cell UAV

The SolarBubbles student team has the goal of designing, building and testing an aircraft capable of 36+ hours of autonomous solar-powered flight while carrying small payload. This group, made up of freshman through PhD students, is highly motivated and skilled. All members upon joining the team are trained in theory, design, and manufacturing methods for composites, electronics and software culminating in a small flying aircraft.

The main team is divided into project groups such as power management, autonomy, analysis and design/build/test. These groups work on individual projects while the system engineer sets requirements driven by the overall goal. Many flight tests have taken place and the team is currently in a design phase, culminating in test flights in the spring of 2008.

The SolarBubbles team is well connected with the aerospace department and volunteers its time in many activities including electronics and software training, assistance for other student teams, lectures and research assistance. The team is sponsored by Raytheon Missile Systems GNC, Adaptive Materials Inc, the Wilson Center, Aerospace Engineering and the University of Michigan.

In addition to its primary goals, SolarBubbles collaborates with industry and the community on smaller sub projects. The most recent project undertaken is the Fuel Cell UAV (FC-UAV) project in 2008.

The FC-UAV project was started by SolarBubbles and Adaptive Materials, Inc (AMI), a fuel cell company in Ann Arbor. AMI came to SolarBubbles with a new fuel cell, capable of running at high efficiencies on liquid and gas hydrocarbon propellants; SolarBubbles's task was to design an airframe for this fuel cell. Students set about designing an airplane with simplicity and ease of construction in mind, and after a month of reviews and criticism, the final design was set. With full fuel, this design will be able set a new world record for fuel cell powered flight.

The team itself is a subset of SolarBubbles. Each subteam member has access not only to the design expertise of SolarBubbles, but also to the engineers working at AMI and the faculty at the University of Michigan. Over the past month, these students have progressed from initial conception to prototyping and production, with flight testing commencing at the end of March. Full fuel-cell flights will take place in late April or May.

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