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Solar powered SAT-I flies for ten hours

20th July 2018 - 13:30 GMT | by Shephard News Team

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UAVOS has completed a ten hour flight test of the solar powered SAT-I UAS carrying a 600g camera payload.

SAT-i is designed to perform monitoring and aerial photography during daylight hours for a range of applications such as prospecting, mapping and monitoring important lines of communication in remote areas.

The fixed wing aircraft has a wingspan of 7.3 meters and weight of 6.2kg. It is hand-launched, with flight and landing performed in fully autonomous mode.

Equipped with a back-up Li-Ion battery, the aircraft can extend its operation if required, flying without solar energy for two (optionally four) hours with a payload of up to 600g.

Vadim Tarasov, UAVOS investor and board member, said: ‘Using solar-powered aircraft for such missions is, in our opinion, most promising, since solar energy is sufficient to perform a continuous flight throughout the daylight hours.

‘Especially effective is the use of such UAVs for high-resolution orthomosaic imagery in large areas with a long flight time. For example, to successfully solve communication problems during long-distance monitoring missions of electrical power lines UAVOS uses the Iridium data satellite transceiver module.’

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