The new drone features standard solar cells, which are encapsulated in composite material without losing efficiency.Adelaide-based firm Praxis Aeronautics has developed a new process to integrate c-Si solar cells in the composite material of a drone, not adding additional weight to the aerial vehicle, while keeping the costs down.
The company, run by father and son Don and Cameron Donaldson, has come up with a laminating process, which allows the cells to operate at maximum efficiency, and improved the flight duration by six times, in comparison to electric drones which can fly for one hour around.
In the previous efforts to build a solar-powered drone, the success was mostly limited as fixing solar panels on the vehicle was adding too much weight, whereas using thin film to wrap the body of a drone came with high costs of $35,000 per square meter compared to the Praxis method of $1000. Other types of drones, such as a petrol-powered drone are either too expensive, or they have a limited flying time, ...Den vollständigen Artikel lesen ...