Drones powered by solar energy offer the promise of staying in the air for years on end, but DARPA scientists also want an option for the nighttime. Now the Pentagon agency has awarded a contract to Aurora Flight Sciences to build a micro air vehicle that can harvest both sunlight and thermal energy, Ares Defense Blog reports.
Aurora will focus its work on the agile flying-wing drone platform called the Skate, which can unfold from a backpack and launch like a boomerang to navigate streets and inside buildings.
Future variants of the Skate would have thin-film lithium batteries formed into a wing shape. The upper surface would have solar cells, and the lower surface would hold infrared photovoltaic cells for some night-time recharging.
About 95 percent of the Skate's 40-watt power requirement would come from sunlight, with the remaining 5 percent coming from thermal energy. If the design seems doable during the six-month Phase 1 study, Aurora might get a Phase 2 contract to build the new drone -- and the company might even squeeze in a bat sonar-inspired navigation system.
As of this week, SOLO-TREC has made 430 dives from the surface to about 500 meters (1,640 feet), and each time, it's produced about 1.6 watt-hours of power, more than enough to operate its science instruments, buoyancy pump, GPS receiver and communications devices. You can track its path through the ocean here.
Future generations of thermal engines could harbor all kinds of scientific and surveillance instruments uninhibited by the need for replenished power. Swean said the next step is to put a thermal engine inside a sea glider, perhaps one like the "Scarlet Knight" unmanned glider that made a transatlantic trip last year.
"This type of an engine, as it matures, will find many types of applications. Gliders is one; traditional unmanned underwater vehicles is another," Swean said. "Essentially you have an unlimited energy supply and we've got an engine that is taking advantage of that."
Future generations of thermal engines could harbor all kinds of scientific and surveillance instruments uninhibited by the need for replenished power. Swean said the next step is to put a thermal engine inside a sea glider, perhaps one like the "Scarlet Knight" unmanned glider that made a transatlantic trip last year.
"This type of an engine, as it matures, will find many types of applications. Gliders is one; traditional unmanned underwater vehicles is another," Swean said. "Essentially you have an unlimited energy supply and we've got an engine that is taking advantage of that."
"We know so little about the ocean. It would be nice to explore more of the deep sea," he said. "It would be a long time before we run out of science to do."
NOTE: Everything works in the correct scale and settings yet this is VERY promising technology to help offset satellite and ocean garbage monitoring and reporting fleets.