AtlantikSolar, solar-powered fixed-wing UAV, Autonomous Systems Lab, Zurich, Switzerland

[Airicist]

A UAV for the first-ever autonomous solar-powered crossing of the Atlantic Ocean

Developer - Autonomous Systems Lab

Website - atlantiksolar.ethz.ch

youtube.com/AtlantikSolar

Predessesors:

senseSoar - sensesoar.ethz.ch

Sky-Sailor - sky-sailor.ethz.ch

[Airicist]

SenseSoar Flight Tests: Dynamics and Onboard Avionics Evaluation

Published on May 27, 2013

This video shows a test flight of the SenseSoar airplane prototype developed at the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich. SenseSoar features a series of sensors and onboard computational ressources to allow autonomous navigativation in unknown large scale environments. This project is partially funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 285417 ICARUS.

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar Test Flight #001

Published on Nov 16, 2012

Atlantik-Solar prototype test flight #001, performed on November 14th 2012 at Pf?ffikon, CH. The test was performed to determine the general aerodynamic and structural characteristics of the airplane, e.g. the aerodynamic stability as well as the behaviour during take-off and landing. The aircraft was steered via manual RC-control for the whole flight duration.

Atlantik-Solar is a novel kind of Solar-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with the goal to demonstrate the very first fully solar powered and autonomous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in Summer 2014. Due to the ultra long flight endurance of Solar-UAVs demonstrated during the atlantic crossing, future applications lie in search and rescue support, meteorological observations or surveillance operations. The Atlantik-Solar UAV is developed by the Autonomous Systems Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in cooperation with industry partners.

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar TestFlight #003

Published on May 3, 2013

Atlantik-Solar is a novel kind of Solar-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with the goal to demonstrate the very first fully solar powered and autonomous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in Summer 2014. Due to the ultra long flight endurance of Solar-UAVs demonstrated during the atlantic crossing, future applications lie in search and rescue support, meteorological observations or surveillance operations. The Atlantik-Solar UAV is developed by the Autonomous Systems Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in cooperation with industry partners.

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar - Atlantic-crossing Solar-UAV

Published on May 15, 2013

Atlantik-Solar is a novel kind of Solar-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with the goal to demonstrate the very first fully solar powered and autonomous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in summer 2014. Due to the ultra long flight endurance of Solar-UAVs demonstrated during the atlantic crossing, future applications lie in search and rescue support, meteorological observations or surveillance operations. The Atlantik-Solar UAV is developed by the Autonomous Systems Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in cooperation with industry partners.

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar - Test Flight day #5

Published on Jul 7, 2013

Atlantik-Solar is a novel kind of Solar-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with the goal to demonstrate the very first fully solar powered and autonomous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in summer 2014. Due to the ultra long flight endurance of Solar-UAVs demonstrated during the atlantic crossing, future applications lie in search and rescue support, meteorological observations or surveillance operations. The Atlantik-Solar UAV is developed by the Autonomous Systems Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in cooperation with industry partners.

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar - Autopilot testing on a smaller experimental airplane

Published on Feb 21, 2014

The video shows an ETH Zurich test plane (Multiplex EasyGlider) with the integrated Pixhawk PX4 and the Autopilot, both developed at ETH Zurich. Both of these components are also integrated in the AtlantikSolar prototype. The video was filmed for the European ICARUS project.

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar - Autonomous Waypoint Following (TF #9 & #10)

Published on May 12, 2014

The video shows ETH Zurich's solar-powered ultra-long endurance AtlantikSolar airplane with the integrated Pixhawk PX4 and autopilot, both developed at ETH Zurich. AtlantikSolar is shown in its very first autonomous flight, or more specifically, while performing a waypoint-following mission.

[Airicist]

Press-release "First fully-solar powered day/night flight achieved: In-air 28 hours without fuel!"

July 2, 2015

[Airicist]

AtlantikSolar - 81 hour endurance world record flight

Published on Jul 28, 2015

This video shows ETH Zurich's AtlantikSolar 2 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle during its continuous flight of 2316km and 81.5 hours (4 days and 3 nights) that took place between July 14th-17th 2015 and broke the flight endurance world record for all UAVs below 50kg total mass. In addition, the fully solar-powered flight is the longest-ever flight of a low-altitude long-endurance (LALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, the second-longest flight among any UAV, and the fifth-longest flight ever shown by any aircraft worldwide. From an applications perspective, the flight proves the central commercially-promising advantage of solar-powered UAVs, i.e. their capability to stay airborne for multiple days while providing telecommunication services in large-scale disaster-scenarios or live-imagery during industrial sensing and inspection missions.

More information can be found at
"Solar-powered 81-hours flight successful: A new endurance world record!"

by philipoe
July 20, 2015