The time airborne and with that the operation radius is limited by the battery life. Provided the case that the sun is shining above the mediterranean sea, solar cells on the wing surface are capable to increase this radius. At ETH Zurich they even built a autonomous rc-plane that can fly through the entire night with the solar energy collected the day before. Thought further, it may even be possible to develop a drone which can be launched even from mainland and only needs to return for data transfers and maintenance.

For nearer future the first step is to only increase the range with solar energy.

Holger Lambertus describes the manufacturing-process of a wing with inbuilt Solar-Panels. He builds them with a core of foamed material on which the Solar cells along with a top layer of glass are laminated.

To get this solar project viable it is necessary to increase the wing-surface. Designing a custom-wing is disappointingly difficult.

Author: Nepomuk

• Paper “Solar System for a Long Endurance Electric UAV” - https://ubibliorum.ubi.pt/bitstream/10400.6/6480/1/4312_8292.pdf
• Report “M:2:I Milestone 2 Solar Panel Installation” -https://m2i.aere.iastate.edu/cardinalflight/files/2017/12/ArrowTeam_Milestone2_Report.pdf
• ETH Zürich: Atlantik Solar - Perpetual flight for 3 days and nights in Switzerland - Check the publications list there including the PhD thesis from Philipp Oettershagen.
• Holger Lambertus solar flight homepage - The solar flight expert!
• Luka Artelj solar plane

Excel Sheet

* https://cloud.hs-augsburg.de/s/YQywq5iZPHWxzWT

• 0.3 m² Wing Area

• 0.6 m² Wing Area
• Setup used here: http://www.solardrone.ro/jurnal-de-bord/Rebel-Solar-1721.html