In the article, “The RoboBee Flies Solo,” Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (2019) has stated that after decades worth of research, they have successfully developed the lightest ever vehicle to maintain sustained untethered flight on solar power.
They stated they have developed an extremely lightweight circuit and integrated high-efficiency solar cells to tackle the trade-off between mass and power. The addition of an extra pair of wings and a more efficient transmission gave the vehicle the extra lift it needed to forego the power cord and instead integrate the smallest commercially available solar cells. These weigh in at 10 milligrams each and are able to harvest 0.76 milliwatts of power per gram, weighing the vehicle to 259 milligrams and power consumption of 120 milliwatts. It stated their next aim was to add a control board to fly it outdoors.
Reference list:
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science. (2019, June 26). The RoboBee Flies Solo: Cutting the power cord for the first time untethered flight. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190626133712.htm
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