UAVs as moving shade umbrellas?

This is pretty speculative, but creative all the same: autonomous blimps as robo-shade. From Fast Company:

"Qatari scientists claim to have cracked the problem of shade for crowded stadiums during the 2022 World Cup: Artificial clouds.

Local temperatures can poke upward of 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 celcius), and relentless summer sun would be a big barrier to enjoyment for the hundreds of thousands of football fans expected to attend in person. The games were originally going to be moved to winter months, but FIFA has since reconsidered (no doubt pondering the disruption this could cause in competing nations' own football leagues). Air conditioning spaces for crowds, and practice arenas for the hundreds of players themselves, is a possibility of course, and will happen--but the environmental burden could be enormous, even with plans to use solar power to generate some of the energy needed by air conditioning units.

Hence, the idea by Qatari science teams to create huge artificial clouds and float them over venues to block direct sunlight. Essentially, the devices are massive dirigibles filled with helium, built of carbon fiber and super-light fabrics, and equipped with four solar-powered engines to move them into place and keep them stable even in changing winds. Each "cloud" would cost around $500,000, and unlike the Zeppelin-like blimps you're thinking of, the clouds would be large, flat, inflated platforms designed to produce maximum shade."

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Comments

Coby March 29, 2011 at 4:34pm

once again my very smart, visionary friends - just because we can does not mean we should. love it.

besides, didn't i see on the discovery channel that the romans had some kind of shade system built from canvas to solve this very problem?
Petr Hubacek March 28, 2011 at 11:11am

You everone know the wind caused by a plane or arducopter.

Can you imagine the "WINDSTORM" directly into the stad, when this fly above? May be refreshing... :-)
Aaron Curtis March 27, 2011 at 7:30pm

The idea reminds me of the Dune movie in which everyone (or maybe just the Bene Gesserit or something) has personal floating platforms that hover above their heads to provide light and / or shade. Anyone else remember this?
MarcS March 26, 2011 at 5:07pm

500k$ ?? Thats the price of the helium alone...Developement costs? How many should be build?

Looks again more like one of these typical design studies misunderstood by the press to be an engineered design...

Someone remembers Corgolifter (10 years ago)? The idea was "just" a flying crane blimp. Burned severel hundred million euros and did not build one.

Next idea please :-)
hamish March 26, 2011 at 2:05pm

this is pretty cool, i hope it's not cheaper to build a roof
T.D. Gonzales March 26, 2011 at 12:54pm

People would go to the games just to watch the shades.
DaveyWaveyBunsenBurner March 26, 2011 at 1:28am

This should be the text book definition of over engineering!
SciFly March 26, 2011 at 12:31am

They do have problems with wickedly fast sand storms,perhaps that would be a barrier to implementing this sort of thing,and I expect that's a huge cost underestimate,given the rising cost and shortage of helium around the world,not to mention the CF.cool thought though,no less!
John Hestness March 25, 2011 at 8:47pm

You would just need 30,000 of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_a3A2eA0-I
John Hestness March 25, 2011 at 8:40pm

Another interesting idea worth investigating. Assuming the evening time slot is already booked at the stadium. I could see some combination of solar-power, sails, helium, and tethering working for this application. Safety would be a major concern, but you could pay for it by selling the advertising space.

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