Onboard waste heat recovery systems for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) offer improved efficiency and operational capability. Systems based on modern thermoelectric generator technology offer the most practical and cost-effective option for near-term development into a commercial product. Techsburg will build on prior thermoelectric generator-UAV system integration research and development to show feasibility of solid-state waste heat conversion on a modern UAV. Thermoelectric systems can provide waste heat energy recovery for additional power on long endurance missions, and also provide on-demand heating or cooling of critical aircraft components during the mission. Previous work has shown fuel efficiency gains which result in significantly improved endurance and time on station. Compact, conformable systems will be designed and modeled during Phase I, and analyzed for both small and large UAVs to show the overall concept feasibility over a range of aircraft sizes.
Keywords: Thermoelectric Power Generation, Thermoelectric Power Generation, Waste Heat Conversion, Uav, Cooling