Researchers testing cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicle technology went to the 24 hours a day sunlight of Greenland to power ‘perpetual’ solar drone flights.
The main goal of the project from the manufacturer’s perspective was to find a practical application of a solar-powered drone that could fly indefinitely, as there’d been few real-world uses. To partial success, the group tested the ‘First-ever solar-powered flight in the Arctic’ on June 20th.
The Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL), the designer of the drone, and glaciologists from ETH Zurich got together to test out the newest solar-powered done model – the AtlantikSolar – and to monitor glaciers in Greenland.