Titan Aerospace and Alliance Lp Drones are two companies involved in the design and production of solar powered extreme endurance UAS.
It makes a lot of sense to use UAVs as low orbit satellites!
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Titan Aerospace and Alliance Lp Drones are two companies involved in the design and production of solar powered extreme endurance UAS.
It makes a lot of sense to use UAVs as low orbit satellites!
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Comments
Solar PV is already into the 40%'s in terms of efficiency, although they are obscenely expensive. Perpetual flight is already a reality, but with a payload that actually has to do something useful, that might be a different story.
Just a little further development in batteries and solar panel efficiency and this will become a reality.
The have perfect line of sight. So the power consumption shouldn't be that high.
I suspect the main problem with these solar critters is that the power consumption of the payload is a gazillion orders of magnitude more than what's required to keep it in the air. Presumably they're only good for flying to stratospheric altitudes under relatively benign conditions and they'll survive whilst aloft above and steering clear of the real weather. At these altitudes, the radio power required for any form of cell-phone base station would take 95% of the total solar panel area...?
But of course! I still wonder if landing on the last day of Farnborough 2010 allowing us tykes at the show to rib the Americans mercilessly was not the real reason. There is a huge leap from 3D renderings to actual flight. I would rather see a cobbled together thing in the physical world to prove folks are really testing than a rendering.
Not so complex! LOL
Gary, strictly we had to stop because we were running-up a huge bar bill..
I was discussing systems like this with some people during a deployment to Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It would be a great way to get quick emergency communications up and running following a disaster until the main communications infrastructure can be repaired or replaced.
I have designed a similar concept, the problem is to get the funding.. You may have a look : https://prezi.com/oacvnj0q3a0e/watcher/
You can do this kind of thing in the US if you know how to apply for a waiver and get it. We have been dropping planes from high altitude for years. You just have to know how to work with the FAA.
The drone issues don't stop experimental work form being done. It dose hamper commercial efforts. But not experimental if you know what to do.
Almost all of FAA regulations can be given a waiver if you apply for them and comply with their requirements.
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