UFACET Flight Planner

The UFACET systems seeks to fly a UAV drone along a trajectory that systematically scans a heliostat field. Flight approach angles and paths are chosen to view each assessed heliostat through a range of positions so that heliostats in front of the heliostat are seen in reflection sweeping from the top to the bottom of the assessed heliostat. Given a heliostat field description, calendar date and time of year, the UFACET Flight Planner computes this trajectory and outputs a flight-ready flight plan.

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Location

OpenCSP_Code: opencsp/opencsp/contrib/app/ufacet-s/flight_planner_ufacet

Status

Nearly complete, rough. Has been used to compute hundreds of successful flight plans. Poor interface.

Documentation

  • R. Brost, D. Small, D. Novick, and B. Bean. High-Speed UAV Assessment of Heliostat Fields.  Presented at Near Earth Autonomy, April 1, 2024.
  • R. C. Brost, D. E. Small, D. Novick, and B. Bean. High-Speed Assessment of Heliostat Fields without Disrupting Operations. ES 2023 17th International Conference on Energy Sustainability, Washington, DC, July 2023.
  • R. C. Brost, P. A. Apostolopoulos, D. E. Small, D. K. Novick, N. R. Jackson, Micah S. Mann, and Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou. High-Speed In-Situ Optical Scanning of Heliostat Fields. SolarPACES 2021.