Solar Storm is the result of a conceptual design study for a Hybrid-Solar cell powered MAV. And as far as I can search through the internet Solar Storm is the smallest solar MAV (which is autonomous) in the world (please correct me if I am wrong...).

Frame is especially designed for its particular flight conditions by using computer aided drafting and moulds have been milled precisely with a 3-axis CNC in order to achieve the designed shape and surface quality. 20 [http://www.azurspace.com/ S32 Solar cells] bonded under vacuum by the help of a silicon based special glue from [http://www.map-coatings.com/ MAP-Coatings].

You can also check out [http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/Fire-Storm Fire Storm] page to see a version without solar cells.


[[Image:SolarStorm1.jpg|600px|Solar Storm]]


== Specifications ==
*'''Span:''' 500 mm
*'''Weight:''' 300 g
*'''Solar cells:''' 20 cells, serially linked for a maximum theoretical power of 6.5W
*'''MPPT:''' Custom designed Maximum Power Point Tracker

== Performances ==

'''24 September 2009 '''

The third flight of Solar-Storm (with 1320mAH battery) has just finished :)
Achieved endurance is:
 
*'''New Endurance:''' '''90''' minutes. 

'''11 September 2009 '''

Solar-Storm has only 2 test flights yet. First to tune :) and second to measure the endurance.

The numbers we got from the first flight test (by using only 730mAH battery) are encouraging:

*'''Endurance:''' 53 minutes
*'''Average level-flight consumption:''' 11-12 W
*'''Average power from Solar cells:''' ~4-5 W 

Note: It was a partially cloudy day, sun was hiding behind the clouds for 20 minutes of the flight. 

The following plot show power numbers for 7 minutes. From top to bottom, the curves show:
* (purple) The voltage (V) of the solar cells array
* (orange) The power (W) of the solar cells array extracetd through the MPPT.
* (green) The total current (I) consumed by the whole system
* (blue) The current (I) going out of the battery.

We can observe on the last curve that the battery was sometimes charged in flight !
 
[[Image:Solarplot.png|700px|Solar Plot]]

Solar-Storm will be capable of flying more than 145 minutes at its designed conditions. But not tested yet :)

== Acknowledgements==
Thanks a lot to [http://www.map-coatings.com/ MAP Coatings Company] for helping us in the hard bonding process of solar cells on to the wing.

[[Category:Airframes]]