Solar Drones To Function As Satellites
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עברית (Hebrew)
That is the vision of Alliance Lp Drones, a company with innovative approach.
Alliance Lp Drones Ltd., was founded in 2012 and a year later made a strategic decision to specialize in the design, development and manufacturing of solar unmanned atmospheric platforms, a new and innovative market niche in the unmanned sector, joining companies such as; Facebook and Google (Titan Aerospace).
Alliance has since developed three different platform designs capable of carrying variable and interchangeable payloads, starting at approximately 100 Kilogram of telecom payload with their basic model. These platforms will operate at altitudes between 65,000 ft (20 km) to 80,000 (24 km) for up to five years if required.
Conventional Satellites technologies comes with some drawbacks: satellites are expensive and difficult to manufacture, additionally propelling these vehicles into orbit is also a very costly, complex and labor intensive process. Once in orbit satellites can’t be reclaimed for maintenance, payload recovery or any other technical or logistical requirements.
According to the international company that is active in a number of countries it has completed the design and system architecture for a number of new Unmanned Atmospheric Satellite Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
These systems the company claims are capable of replacing low orbit satellites at a fraction of the cost and provide communications over remote areas by using laser arrays to transfer bandwidth such as; data/voice communication and internet services. Other significant advantages of these systems will be the capability to remain geostationary for extended periods of time near earth facilitating all technical, maintenance and logistical operations.
Hermes, SolarMax and SolarMaster Atmospheric Satellite UAVs main applications will include; extreme endurance communication relays, internet and cellular network coverage, weather monitoring and persistent border and perimeter security patrols.
At present Alliance has completed the development of the first two Hermes prototypes; H-1 (wind tunnel aerodynamic elasticity testing composite model) and H-2 (dynamic model for field flight testing). Alliance is now in the process to start manufacturing H-3 prototype for further testing, the next step will be to begin modular assembly of the full scale platform measuring a total wingspan of 63 meters (200 ft).
