Trans Motauto World
Vol. 10 (2025), Issue 3, pg(s) 112-117

VEHICLE ENGINES. APPLICATION OF FUELS TYPES. EFFICIENCY

Power Sources for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Review

  • 1 Defence Institute "Professor Tsvetan Lazarov", Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly being deployed across a broad range of applications, including surveillance, logistics, environmental monitoring, and military operations. However, their operational effectiveness remains fundamentally constrained by current energy storage technologies, primarily lithium-ion batteries. These conventional power sources suffer from low specific energy, limited endurance, prolonged charging times, and safety concerns under extreme operating conditions.
This paper presents a comprehensive review of alternative energy solutions for UAV platforms, focusing on hydrogen fuel cells, solar photovoltaic systems, tethered power configurations, wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies, and hybrid propulsion architectures. Each technology is assessed in terms of energy density, system complexity, operational endurance, and suitability for specific mission profiles.

Keywords

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