Hi Guys! Here’s today’s “press-release breakthrough”: A solar-powered drone that “can fly forever” - well, until the sun goes down anyway. Well, the video shows it barely able to lift itself off a table, but anyway, maybe it can catalyze an idea for AWE or something…
World’s tiniest solar drone can fly forever with high lift efficiency (interestingengineering.com)
Here’s my take on this one:
- It seems to be exaggerated, saying it can fly forever, but then it can’t keep flying without sunlight. I’m guessing it might not be able to fly when the sun is not straight overhead, or whichever way the solar cells are pointing.
- It seems like a “Professor Crackpot” combination of at least two (2) separate ideas.
a) A helicopter-style drone
b) a static electricity motor.
Not sure if either idea is new, and not so sure the static electricity drive is in any way superior to more conventional motors. I mean, after all, weren’t the very first electric motors operated by static electricity? Maybe that’s just my imagination, but the idea is certainly not new, and one might assume the reason we seldom see one is they don’t work as well as regular motors.
The average reader might not think through whether the helicopter drone rationalizes the static electric drive, since their mind has already been directed to fixate on “it can fly forever” or whatever nonsense they writer interjects or claims the source makes. Nope, it just looks like “a breakthrough”, despite the video only showing it lifting off a table or lab bench. (ground-effect?)
Oh well, at least we have a press-release breakthrough, even if it turns out not to be a real breakthrough, it makes for interesting entertainment. 