Solar-Powered Drone Soaks up the Sun Above Arizona Desert
Tuesday, July 20th 2010 12:00 PM
By GetSolar Staff.
British robotics technology firm QinetiQ is testing its latest technology high above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, further demonstrating the state's important role in solar innovation. Last month, Abengoa Solar got almost $1.5 billion in funds to create an Arizona solar installation that will be the largest concentrating solar plant in the world, and now it looks like QinetiQ's Zephyr will break the record for continuous unmanned flight.
The plane is billed as "the world's first truly eternal plane," a craft which can take to the skies and remain aloft for weeks or even months at a time, monitoring battlefields, borders or high-security zones like power plants and shipyards from above.
Though its wingspan measures 74 feet from tip to tip, the Zephyr weighs just 110 pounds and runs off of lithium-sulfur batteries engineered by the Tucson, Arizona solar battery developer Sion Power.
The solar panel arrays use a paper-thin "amorphous" silicon rather than the conventional crystalline silicon solar panels, giving the vehicle a very high power-to-weight ratio.
QinetiQ has long experience with building robots for military applications, having already constructed the Talon roadside bomb disposal robot and the Maars combat robot.
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British robotics technology firm QinetiQ is testing its latest technology high above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, further demonstrating the state's important role in solar innovation. Last month, Abengoa Solar got almost $1.5 billion in funds to create an Arizona solar installation that will be the largest concentrating solar plant in the world, and now it looks like QinetiQ's Zephyr will break the record for continuous unmanned flight. 
