Скачать или смотреть World's Smallest Drone Weigh 10 Grams Yet It Flies for Hours on Sunlight Alone

Imagine a drone so tiny you can barely see it, yet it can fly for over an hour without batteries—powered only by sunlight. Engineers from Beihang University and China’s Center of Advanced Aero-Engine have made this possible, marking a major breakthrough in micro-drone technology.

Traditional micro-drones, called MAVs, struggle to stay airborne for more than 10–15 minutes because they have limited space for batteries or solar panels. This new drone overcomes both limits by using sunlight and a different kind of motor—an electrostatic motor.

Instead of magnets and coils like normal motors, electrostatic motors use static electricity—similar to how a rubbed balloon attracts hair. This design works better at microscopic scales and consumes far less power. The team built a version weighing just 1.52 grams, powered by two small solar cells. Under sunlight, it hovered continuously for over 60 minutes—a record for its size.

Such sunlight-powered drones could revolutionize environmental monitoring, disaster rescue, and surveillance. They can operate silently, stay airborne longer, and potentially fly indefinitely in ideal conditions.

Though still a prototype, this technology points to a future where swarms of palm-sized, battery-free drones quietly monitor forests, oceans, and cities—powered only by sunlight.

Reference:
Wei Shen et al, Sunlight-powered sustained flight of an ultralight micro aerial vehicle, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07609-4

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