On 24 April 2019 students from Aviation Engineering Department had a guest lecture from Prof. Frank C.Y. Lin from National Formosa University Taiwan. The guest lecture itself was about the current development of solar-powered High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (HALE UAV) in Taiwan escpecially in National Formosa University.
Prof. Lin briefly explained the whole progress of HALE UAV project that has been develeped from 2010; from the initial planning, prototyping as well as flight tests. The purpose of this project is to develop a more affordable alternative choice of telecommunication by having a UAV, instead of a satellite, fly above commercial air traffic altitude but below the orbit of satellites.
In this project Prof. Lin stated that they had encountered numerous problems regarding the structure of the UAV especially in the manufacturing phase. The team had to make adjustments as they were limited in resources and experience. After they were able to assemble the prototype, they also encountered a problem during the test filght as the UAV experienced vibrations that really put the UAV to the test. The team had to make further modifications to tackle this problem. In the end they were able to fly three prototypes.
With this guest lecture it is hoped that the students from Aviation Engineering Department would be inspired to try to do such projects. From the presentation of Prof. Lin there are many lessons that we can learn in building a UAV from scratch. We have to understand the limitations of the UAV and make sure that it can be controlled in critical conditions as well as making sure that the UAV is able to withstand stresses of flying. We would like to thank Prof. Lin for his visit to IULI as well as wishing him and his team good luck for their future projects. – FT