The State of Solar-powered Drones

In recent years, both the drone and the solar industries have been advancing and growing at an impressive speed.

• Solar: scientists have improved PV’s inefficiency yet driven down the cost so much so that solar energy has reached “grid parity” in many countries.
• Drone: Powered by AI and Li-on battery, drones have the mind-blowing applications that will profoundly impact society such as passage drones, logistics, disaster management, precision agriculture, search and rescue in addition to aerial photography.

But can these two awesome technologies combine? Excitingly, the answer is YES, it’ called solar done, duh?

Here are the companies and the drones they are working on:

• Titan Aerospace (acquired by Google): Solara 50
• Boeing / DARPA: SolarEagle
• Aurora Flight Sciences: Odysseus
• BAE Systems: PHASA-35
• Chinese Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics (CAAA): Caihong (“Rainbow) T-4
• AeroVironment Inc: HAWK30
• Facebook / Ascenta: Aquila
• British defense firm QinetiQ: The Zephyr

Willie Jiang

In the fight against the climate crisis, Willie Jiang believes that content marketing can push the energy revolution along at a faster pace. Having helped countless brands grow their organic traffic by 10X and became the CMO of SolarFeeds.com, he is sharing his insights with the solar energy industry. If you want to publish your articles on SolarFeeds Magazine, click here.