World's First Hydraulic Drone Promises Six-Hour, Non-Stop Flights Over 805 km
coolgopher writes:
World's First Hydraulic Drone Promises Six-Hour, Non-Stop Flights Over 805 km:
It might not look perfectly stable in the air just yet, but a company called Flowcopter is building the world's first hydraulic drone that trades batteries and electric motors for pumps and gas engines delivering a range of hundreds of miles and flight times that last hours.
There's little doubt that someday batteries and electric motors will be up to the task of powering all the vehicles we rely on: from cars to massive container ships, even planes, but the current reality is that gasoline and other fossil fuels are much higher density fuel sources than batteries and can power motors and engines much longer with considerably less weight.
[...] A gas engine on a drone could certainly be used to power a generator that supplies power to electric motors - an approach that early electric vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt used as a backup to extend their range - but Flowcopter's trying something entirely new. Instead of electric motors powering each propeller, hydraulic motors, powered by an endless flow of hydraulic fluid through hoses, make them spin.
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