Night solar panel drones? 24 hour operation?!

[Arugela]

So, take this idea for solar panels at night. combine it with a drone skin and can you get 24 hour operation of super mini drones? It says it gets 50m/w(miliwatts?) compared to 100-200megawatts. does anyone know the size/weight of such a thing?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/solar-cell

In fact could you do both sun and night panel in one item? I'm not familiar with how much electricity is used by drones. Or the nature of the solar panel.

Quote

“In principle, it could be possible to engineer the thermal-emission property of the solar cell to optimize its radiative cooling performance without affecting solar performance,” Fan says. “Our theoretical calculations point to the possibility of a few hundred milliwatts or maybe even 1 watt.”

If you could you could get new cool online cameras for internet feeds. Or house security cameras. Outside of engine death/replacements. You could make semi permanent search and rescu mini drones for important areas or for places with lots of tourists etc. Might be some loss of privacy though.

In fact could temp differences and a lack of light(or something else) allow the inside of a drone to gather electricity? Or a type of paint coating that could act as a solar panel in some way?

https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/solar-paint-hydrogen-quantum-dot-perovskite-solar-cells

could you paint the inside and outside of a drone or car and make it self charging? If you could maximize surface area to all surfaces...

Edited September 7, 2023 by Arugela

[steve9728]

Question: how do you define your super mini drones?

Is it like: 

Or like: 

But it looks like your need is to keep automatic visits to secure the important places, so my suggestion might not be that super mini:

And then plug with your solar panels or your wind turbine or something

Edited September 7, 2023 by steve9728

[farmerben]

Solar panels in low earth orbit can achieve 1kW/m^2

[Shpaget]

No, just no. So much wrong here.

50 mW (milliwatt, no / in there) figure is per one meter squared. That's liquid all.

Where does this 100-200 megawatt figure come from? I don't see it in the article.

Conservative figures are 100-200 W/m^2 of regular solar panel production (watts, not megawatts; again per square meter).

Charge a car with this? Yeah, not gonna happen. To charge a Tesla model 3 in 12 hours, you would need to have about 100 000 m^2 of these panels. That's about 100 000 ^2 more than what you have available on a car.

Can it power a drone continuously? Of course not. For example, a DJI Mavic (a small drone) has a stated battery capacity of 43,6 Wh and flight time of 27 minutes, meaning that it consumes about 100 W. To power it by these night panels, you would need 2000 m^2 of them.

This is a gimmick. The energy these panels allegedly produce during the 12 hours of night, equals to about 20 seconds of production during the day. If you need power during the night, but it is such low demand, just put a tiny rechargeable battery in you device and be done with it.

[darthgently]

4 hours ago, farmerben said:

Solar panels in low earth orbit can achieve 1kW/m^2

These are the multi layer, multi band panels I'd assume

[Arugela]

What if you made a drone body out of a very thin paper for screen material and painted it with a dual paint. Or Use something so the frame is nothing but paint? How much could you get out of one?

[Shpaget]

Even if these panels had zero mass and volume, there is not nearly enough surface available to get a meaningful power level. It's not a case of close but not quite enough. It's orders of magnitude away from enough.

As for exactly how much you would get, multiply the surface area of the drone you have in mind with 50 mW/m^2 and there's your answer.

[FleshJeb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station#Solar_powered

[steve9728]

Honestly, the most viable, cheapest, and most convenient way to solve your need to have a drone on duty 24/7 is to drag a cord underneath the drone that is connected to ground power.

But if there is such a need, except in extreme scenarios like disaster rescue sites, why not use surveillance cameras?

[Shpaget]

58 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

most viable, cheapest, and most convenient

Fixed wing with internal combustion engine.

[kerbiloid]

If the night drone is able to catch mosquitos, it would be a blood drive.