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We (NASA LaRC) are experimenting this summer with wire cut EPP foam arc kites with various different coatings. EPP is relatively cheap, can be recycled, and very tolerant of “unscheduled landings” and we believe can perform fully-autonomous re-launch from a water surface. The EPP holds a very nice profile tolerance compared to the not very good profile tolerance of a ram air kite. We are able to produce foils with good thickness-to-chord ratios (8%) and aspect ratios of up to 20. Our goal is to improve L/D from 3-8 for current ram air kites to maybe 10-12 which would improve specific power output (power/kite area) by up to a factor of ~8. "North, David D. (LARC-E402)"
The EPP foam is a solution that is mid-way between a soft wing and rigid wing that has benefits of both.
We are building a servo motor controlled kite flying system that can measure kite speed, trajectory, line forces, and line speed and should be producing data within a few weeks.
We are also doing some experiments with a simplified optical tracking system that uses only one or two (cheap) cameras for flight control. No control system instrumentation onboard the two-line kite (no GPS, no IMUs, no gyros, no telemetry).
Stay tuned. Will keep you all informed of progress.
Dave North
NASA Langley Research Center
Source: M3867 July 21, 2011.
