Blogs

Another use for UAVs: generating power

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 16, 2010 at 9:30pm

There's a good profile of Saul Griffith in last week's New Yorker. One of the companies he started, Makani Power, wants to use tethered UAVs (shown above) to generate power. Here's the relevant excerpt from the article. (Sorry about the scan, the New Yorker doesn't give out full text of most of its articles): Click for full size.

E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Ron Jacobs May 17, 2010 at 3:24pm

Impressive.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson May 17, 2010 at 2:50pm

Eric: check out "dynamic soaring", where RC gliders hit speeds of 400+ MPH just flying circles in constant winds. Now imagine a tether being pulled in and out with each circle.
Eric May 17, 2010 at 2:39pm

hmmm... I might be missing something, but where does the extra energy come from that allows this kite to keep spinning around and generate power?
Jack Crossfire May 17, 2010 at 2:11pm

It worked for Benjamin Franklin back in the old days, but Ben's UAV wasn't GREEN TECH.
Chris Paulson May 17, 2010 at 11:22am

Joby Energy in Santa Cruz, CA is working on this as well. The CEO gave a talk on the subject a months ago at PARC. Apparently the FAA agreed to classify these wind farms as obstructions, as long as they stay below 2000 feet. The talk also contains some very nice UAVish VTOL flying wings and a glimpse of a future flying car.
Lew Payne May 17, 2010 at 10:53am

"If you're talking about a space elevator, they're actually a lot closer to being feasible than you might think" - Xander

We have a space elevator here at work. It just goes to the third floor right now, but I'm hopeful that technology will allow it to reach the moon some day. We're a lot closer than anyone thinks as far as being able to do this. Oh, and by the way, I also believe in Santa Claus.
Moderator

Sgt Ric May 17, 2010 at 10:35am

There was a similiar article in MAKE magazine.

It would fly just like a stunt kite, either in large circles or figure eights.

I have flown stunt kites and run R/C sailboats... I know taht the power and speed you can get flying "close" to the wind is incredible.

http://magazine.It/
Ron Jacobs May 17, 2010 at 9:49am

Would the circle it flies be vertical, like a kite does sometimes?
Ron Jacobs May 17, 2010 at 9:39am

Hmmm....half the size of a coffee can and creating that much power? So what keeps the "kite" up? and where does it get its energy to stay up? If it can fly around in circles, tethered and not use up all the energy it genertes, that's a perpetual motion machine, almost. And there isn't enough wind anywhere to keep up an 18 foot "kite" with a couple (small) wind power generators on it...is there?
Xander May 17, 2010 at 9:31am

If you're talking about a space elevator, they're actually a lot closer to being feasible than you might think, and offer some pretty major advantages over rockets. But I don't believe Makani Power has anything to do with those... totally different tech.