The American navy develops a solar plane capable of flying for 90 days in a row

In collaboration with the company Skydweler Aero, the American navy develops an unleashed solar plane capable of flying for 90 days in a row.The Skydweller prototype comes from Solar Impulse 2 designed by the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland), modified by the Company to match the new needs.The machine could serve as a communication relay or permanent air observer platform to escort ships.

The prototype adds new software and improved hardware to Solar Impulse 2 of the EPFL, the first solar plane in the world (with pilot) to have carried out a world tour-in 2015-2016.The new machine is designed by the company Aerospatiale Americanoano-Spanish Skydweler Aero.

The company obtained a $ 5 million contract to develop the plane.The CEO of Skydweler Aero, Robert Miller, notes that the previous flights from Solar Impulse should divide the Tour of the Globe with maximum five -day jumps, due to the limits imposed by the presence of a human pilot.

72 meters of wings covered with solar cells

"When we delete the cockpit, we allow real persistence and offer the possibility of installing up to around 400 kilograms of payload capacity," said Miller.Skydweler's plane is radically different from other high altitude solar planes under development, sometimes called "high altitude platform systems" or pseudo-satellite.These are light and fly to extreme altitudes with small useful loads.

Skydweler's plane is much heavier and has a wingspan 72 meters long, its wings being covered with solar cells.The developers say that it could be equipped with hydrogen fuel cells later to give an additional boost.The plane gradually goes to an unmanned farm.

"We are currently following our plan to test the autonomous flight, then takeoff, then landing and finally our first fully autonomous flight," explains Miller."Once all of this has been approved, we will go to long endurance tests with the goal of working for more than 90 days".

Potential applications in the field of telecommunications

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The American navy currently uses Drones MQ-4C Triton the size of an airliner with a 30-hour endurance during maritime patrols, but it seeks to obtain longer flight durations."The biggest advantage of long endurance is not to have repeated transits to and from the operation area," explains Justin Bronk, of the British reflection group on Royal United SERVICES Institute Institute.Bronk also claims that the Skydweler plane seems more robust than other solar aircraft.

"This is logical for the American navy in particular, which faces fairly difficult weather conditions at high altitude above the Indo-Pacific region," explains Bronk."Hydrogen fuel batteries have meaning as an emergency system, if you have to go up quickly in the event of a bad weather intrusion".

According to Miller, in the longer term, the largest market may not be the army, but commercial telecommunications, solar drones that can provide 5G or other services to a fraction of the cost of satellites."It may still not have enough power for an active sensor like a radar, but it could be useful for passive sensors like cameras, or as a communication node," said Bronk.

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