Battery Free UAV

Overview

We demonstrated the first flight of a battery-free, energy-harvesting, small-scale fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. The aircraft carries no battery at all: it flies on solar energy as it is harvested, which makes available power a moving target set by conditions rather than a reserve the vehicle can draw down.

Technical Details

• Achieved sustained flight on harvested solar power alone, with no onboard energy storage to fall back on
• Designed the aircraft to be energy-aware: with no battery buffering supply against demand, flight and compute have to track instantaneous harvested power directly
• Explored bio-inspired flight strategies, studying how birds exploit soaring to stay aloft on limited energy and what that implies for a batteryless airframe (DroNet ‘23)
• Published in Nature Scientific Reports; the underlying approach is covered by granted patent US20230391479A1, with a follow-on filing submitted in 2025