643
Outdoor tests have shown that the presence of a solar battery does not have a negative effect on the flight characteristics of the drone. The results of the research and experiments were published in the journal Nature Energy.
Scientists from the Austrian Johannes Kepler University in Linz have created light, flexible solar cells from the semiconductor material asperovskite. Their thickness is less than 2,5 micrometers, which is only 1/20 the width of a human hair.
They're 20,1% efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, plus they boast an output power of up to 44 watts per gram.
For a proof-of-concept test of the technology, the scientists installed a ring array of 24 cells on a commercially available CX10 miniature quadcopter. The engineers called it the Solar Hopper. The array is only 1/25 of the total weight of the enlarged drone, and the cells themselves are only 1/400.
Scientists conducted one series of tests in a room under an artificial light source that imitated sunlight. It successfully completed six of the charge-flight-charge cycles.
In another series of experiments, the Solar Hopper was run both with and without the solar panel connected. When connecting the array, the flight time increased by about 6%.
The scientists noted that this number would be higher if the drone was more energy efficient.
