The United States and Spain have created a solar-powered drone for the Navy, which is capable of performing 90-day missions.
This was reported by Forbes.
The aircraft, being developed by U.S.-Spanish company Skydweller Aero, will be provide the capability to persistently watch wide expanses of oceans as never before.
The drone will be equipped with Palantir Technologies' most modern analytics to process the vast amounts of data it collects literally on the fly. Skydweller will carry day and night imaging cameras, plus imaging radar and other sensors. The Foundry software will help make sense of the data, not just by helping identify objects.
Pre-processing also means that the aircraft only needs to pass back a small quantity of relevant data, rather than endless high-resolution video of empty sea. A small team of operators and analysts will be able to handle a large fleet of drones.
The current Skydweller prototype is the Solar Impulse 2 airframe, which has been modified for uncrewed operation.
“Solar Impulse spent over a decade developing an airworthy design sufficient for a human pilot and flight over densely populated areas to successfully complete their mission,” Skydweller Aero CEO Robert Miller told. “We purchased the IP, processes, information, test articles, and a design legacy of over 1,250 flight hours, including a successful circumnavigation.”
The Navy is developing Skydweller under its Autonomous Maritime Patrol Aircraft program. This will carry sensors, communications and electronic warfare equipment on missions lasting for up to 90 days.
“This technological leap will allow a single Skydweller aircraft to more effectively perform the mission of numerous manned & unmanned ISR [intelligence. Surveillance and reconnaissance] /configurable assets, eliminate risk to human pilots, and provide a level of persistence not available anywhere else in the military inventory, or the world,” according to a recent budget document.