The rapid development of industry results in large energy consumption and a negative impact on the environment. Pollution of the environment caused by conventional energy sources such as petrol leads to increased demand for propulsion systems with higher efficiency and capable of energy-saving and emission reduction. The usage of hybrid technology is expected to improve energy conversion efficiency, reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution. In this paper, the simulation platform for the hybrid unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been built by establishing the subsystem models of the UAV power system. Under the two chosen working conditions, the conventional cruise flight mission and the terrain tracking mission, the power tracking control and Q-Learning method have been used to design the energy management controller for the hybrid UAV. The fuel consumption and pollutant emissions under each working condition were calculated. The results show that the hybrid system can improve the efficiency of the UAV system, reduce the fuel consumption of the UAV, and so reduce the emissions of CO2, NOx, and other pollutants. This contributes to improving of environmental quality, energy-saving, and emission reduction, thereby contributing to the sustainable development of aviation.

This paper proposes a distributed turbo-electric hybrid propulsion system (TEHPS) architecture for high-power and large-load air–ground aircraft (AGA). The composition of the turboshaft engine, hybrid energy storage system (HESS) as the power unit, distributed electric drive ducted fans, and wheels as the propulsion unit is determined. Firstly, the modeling of each component in the TEHPS is carried out, and system power, energy, and weight analysis are conducted under the different operating modes. Sizing parameters of main components are selected based on a genetic algorithm to obtain the optimal total weight and propulsion efficiency, and the energy management framework from the upper level to the lower level is completed by adopting an equivalent consumption minimum strategy and fuzzy logic control. Under the air–ground amphibious mission profile, the simulation results indicate that the TEHPS can achieve a 21.80% fuel consumption and ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ emission optimization rate at the cost of 10.53% increase in the whole aircraft mass compared to the oil-only powertrain. The HESS can account for up to 29% and 33.56% of the energy and power ratios in the TEHPS, and reduce mass by 8.1% and volume by 3.77% compared to the single energy storage, which may provide theoretical insights for the powertrain composition form, sizing, and energy management of future hybrid air–ground aircraft.

This paper is inspired by growing number of applications conducted by unmanned aerial systems and prevalent concentration on solar-powered systems for planet exploration and atmospheric research. An energy-oriented trajectory optimization is presented. Sun tracking algorithm, basic model of lower atmosphere and Hottel’s model for estimating solar beam radiation are used to generate solar irradiation environment. Energy collection and energy loss models are developed via linear momentum equations, characteristics of selected aircraft and solar propulsion system. Presented trajectory optimization problem is solved via calculus of variations and fmincon function in MATLAB.

This paper describes the basic concepts for determining the cosmic objects position and motion according to the Kepler's Laws and Newton's law of Universal Gravitation. In addition, the paper also includes an algorithm to compute the (miniature) satellites orbit. The algorithm input data was received from two-line elements (TLE) record. One of the program outputs is the computation of the skCUBE miniature satellite orbit. Following the authors' research, this paper also contains a brief overview of the skCUBE development and its evolution. The MATLAB Live Editor was used for program implementation of the algorithm.

─The article deals with the design of the starter-generator module and the control system design for the starter-generator module. This system has to control the module operation in the engine start-up process, starter and generator mode switching, engine shutdown and fault status signaling. The system is fully automated and controlled by a set of controls.