Solar panels can increase UAV endurance

[licensed pilot]

Solar Panels Are Increasing Drone Endurance | UAV Expert News

 

[huppe]

This looks promising and for sure you will see this in the future.I like it

 

[RaptorMan]

This is more practical for drones based on more typical AC designs using wings for lift and a prop for propulsion as that design is more efficient anyway. Additionally, a wing type AC designed with solar cells in mind and thus having more surface area to put them is the way to go. Lastly, there's no point using cheap inefficient solar cells so better to go with really high efficient cells in the 30%+ region.

There have been a few solar powered AC that get ALL the power from the Sun though they all pretty much have batteries to store surplus and as a boost to get off the ground and climb.

For a quad or similar drone that gets lift from props alone or mostly from props the power/energy needed are much higher and they do not tend to have the surface area needed to produce much solar power. You could optimize the design of a quad/hex/octo to have more surface area, but you'd still have a craft that is substantially more power hungry, pound-for-pound, than a traditional wing based AC.


Brian

 

[Kilrah]

I hate these marketing-oriented BS posts made to sound like incredible news to the uneducated.

Of course they can "increase endurance"... would hope so since we already had fully solar-powered unmanned aircraft 15 years ago.