Optimization of High Endurance Single Wing UAV

Efforts to create worldwide internet accessibility are familiar pursuits to large scale companies such as Facebook with their Aquila project. This research seeks to optimize the endurance of a single wing high-altitude UAV design considering mostly aerodynamics and battery design. Design variables based off of span, chord, velocity, sweep angle, washout, battery size, angle of attack, etc., will expand current research exploring the optimal aerodynamics of UAVs with optimized lithium batteries. Results were obtained using non-gradient and gradient-based optimization methods.