Can this work?

Can this work?

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myresearch.company/data/ecilop-solar.phtml
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No. Not yet at least. Horizontal flight is barely possible.

On mercury.

maybe if you use a platform that isn't notorious for it's inefficiency.

but probs wouldn't work on mercury as there isn't much of an atmosphere. ayy lmao

First, acknowledge that the sun outputs about 1000 watts of energy per square meter at highest noon, most often experienced at the equator.

To hover a mass m, you need to counteract the energy that's drawing it downward due to gravity. Gravity enacts a constant force of mg, and without any competing forces, it will accelerate an object downward by an amount g/t. The total acceleration after 1 second would therefore be about 9.8 extra m/s added after 1 second. Now, we can subtract the kinetic energy of a free-falling object from the kinetic energy of the same falling object a second later. Taking the mass to be 1 kg, the added kinetic energy would be 9.8v+48.02 joules, where v is the initial velocity of the falling object. Since that energy was added in 1 second, this divides by 1 second to give 9.8v+48.02 watts of power needed to hover an object at an upward velocity v. Since you want v to be 0, it means you need about 48.1 watts of power to hover an object if you direct all the energy downward.

A 1-kg weight commonly has a surface area of about a square decimeter, or 1/100th of a square meter. That means that at the density of this weight, you can harvest about 10 watts of energy. However, since solid blocks of material like the weights being considered are markedly denser than electronics, it would be fair to assume that the device can harvest a total of 50 watts, but accounting for your average consumer photovoltaic efficiency, the total collected power would stick closer to 10 watts.

However, a propeller system is a very inefficient way to hold up your device. Some of your force thrusts upward, but most of it thrusts off to the sides. The sum-average of that force will NOT be enough to hover your device. However, if you used another method like electromagnets with a magnetic plate below the device, you could totally float the device. It just couldn't move out from directly above that magnetic plate.

Is there even atmosphere to fly?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
OH MY GOD
THATS ADORABLE

>Taking the mass to be 1 kg
Drones can be much lighter though.

You have to assume something at least, otherwise the comparisons can't be made.

I don't even think a solar panel can produce enough energy to lift only its own weight even if all supporting structures and lift mechanisms had their mass magically nulled. Maybe a ground based laser/maser array using solar power could beam the energy to the drone. Then you can have a massive amount of solar panels.

There's a chance it would work if the spray paint based solar collector stuff was as efficient as the best solar panels we have now. Though, I seriously doubt it. An envelope and lift gas would probably need to be employed. Like those that use a clear top of the envelope and a black bottom. So the sunlight can enter and heat the air inside. If the inside bottom was sprayed with the solar collector stuff it could work. It'd still have shitty flight capabilities of course.

Might it create enough power to extend the flight time on you battery, though?

the real problem you have on earth is lift without exploiting the atmosphere is incredibly hard due to the mass of the planet.

So all of these schemes and plans will always backfire unless you can generate tremendous lossless lift (balloon with ballast) or have a highly dense fuel like nuclear energy.

The most efficient form of transportation (by far) would be a water based one, which utilised wind, currents and tides to travel great distances without great cost. An ideal human habitat would be a floating iceberg structure the size of a city, growing kelp and having it's own fisheries- and as soon as nuclear war happens, that's the next stage we will go to, because the soil will be radioactive for hundreds of years and nothing will grow, we will move out into the oceans inside giant structures which will mostly be underwater.

Flight is a fascinating thing, most birds actually don't fly they are bio-mechanical gliders, who use every little trick they can to save energy and boost or assist their flight path which is constantly decaying.

Insect flight is much more beautiful, because the insect wing is basically perfect for generating lift, hover, changing direction and high speed manoeuvrability. With miniaturisation we are definitely going in that direction of insect robots, and materials physics with nanopolymers embedded with circuitry and dragonfly sized supercomputers is the pre-requisite technology for maintaining a complicated life support dome / undersea structure, which must maintain integrity at all times to avoid drowning or nuclear fallout.

We are super close to figuring that out, so we are super close to WW3.

SOLAR?

OR THERMOSOLAR?

No, the amount of energy needed to lift the extra weight of the solar panel is not enough.

Thermosolar + solar paint would be the most viable thing to use as far as energy from the sun to help power and lift the drone, but that will make for a shitty drone.

Add a balloon to the device to help with lift. Does not have to stop the thing coming down, just slow down the decent. Rising up would be slower due to the balloons drag, but once you get up, you could stay up for longer, retain some maneuverability (wind is not your friend) and stay up longer.

Use a windmill instead. It charges as it moves.

You're fucking 100% retarded. Go read a physics book. You don't need 48W to hover an helium balloon of 1kg of mass

you have no idea what you're talking about

ps if you are wondering why this thread is extra moronic see

small generating windmills doesn't give much power to power up a drone

What about using them as supplements to just slowly recharge a battery while in operation? Would it make a noticeable difference?

Yes and it's been done before:
youtu.be/K2jH95R2ITI
myresearch.company/data/ecilop-solar.phtml


It's not very practical

Your calculations are complete nonsense. Not Even Wrong.

Realistically, you'd need to just look up the power consumption of a quadcopter.

I'm fairly sure that it can be made to work, for some definition of "work". But you might end up having to spend a a fair amount of money on a custom solar panel and end up with something that is too fragile to be of much use.

Bear in mind that the actual PV element only needs to be a thin film. Most of the weight is just for robustness.

That isn't a copter though. It can't lift off and fly out of ground effect under its own power and can't get higher without additional reflected sunlight. Anything that can't fly out of ground effect under its own power is just a hover craft.

no you dumb fuck, read up on the planets

kek it's funny how hover vehicles were envisioned as being able to hover due to jet engines or another advanced method of generating thrust, instead we got propellers.

>because the soil will be radioactive for hundreds of years and nothing will grow
m8 just build your shit 200 feet underground and stick some solar panels on the surface for energy.

any energy produced by the windmill would have to have been exerted by the propellers to keep the wind from just pushing around the contraption rather than spinning the generator, for all power produced by an onboard windmill you would have a net loss of that power going through both systems, the propeller/dc-motor and the propeller/gearbox/generator/ac-dc converter.
It would be worse than useless. you would end up spending more energy than what you produce in all conditions, except if you bolt the damn thing to the ground, or a roof, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

...

>nothing will grow

sciencemag.org/news/2009/05/how-plants-survived-chernobyl

You are so fucking stupid.

And we already have solar powered blimps.

A potential interesting use for OP's gizmo would be an autonomous drone that lands as the batteries are nearing depletion and recharge itself without returning to a base.

Isn't that what they have planned for Mars?

Mars has no atmosphere to fly in, you can only crawl.

i meant nothing edible

>blimps generate lift by actively consuming power

So with some improvements in the materials (for weight), the design (for thrust -ducted fans?-) and the electronics (for power) this is the future