Forbes: Russian fighters refine UAVs by sheathing them with solar panels
With the help of ingenuity and improvised materials, Russian military personnel have made another breakthrough in the field of drone engineering, writes Forbes. A UAV sheathed in solar panels has been spotted on the front line. Such a new generation drone has a lot of advantages.
David Hambling
A recent video from a drone near the bridge over the Dnieper River in the Kherson region captured a Russian drone with a first-person view with an unusual modification: the body is sheathed with solar panels. Yes, this is a clumsy construction made “on the knee" from available materials. But this could be the baptism of fire of a new type of drone that can wait in ambush for as long as it wants.
Technical innovations for ambush drones
As we have already seen, attacking drones with a first-person view (FPV) are increasingly being used for ambushes. The operator lands his device on the side of the highway or on the roof of a building and waits for the target, receiving alerts either from a spotter drone or from the camera of his own UAV. When the target appears, the drone takes off and rushes in pursuit.
The latest ambush drones are equipped with landing supports or struts so that grass or other vegetation does not obscure the view after landing.
Fiber-optic drones are widely used for ambush attacks, as cable connection consumes less energy than wireless video communication. This extends the battery life, so they can wait longer in ambush.
The Russians recently boasted about the Joker drone, which can go into “hibernation”, going into sleep mode for several days or even weeks before reactivating. However, there are no reliable reports on the use of such drones in the field yet.
Using solar energy to keep the battery charged allows the drone to wait in ambush and observe for a long period, or even indefinitely.
Solar Spies
As DanielR, an open-source data analyst, notes in his X (formerly Twitter) thread about solar drones, there are a huge number of lightweight solar charging panels on the market. By packing one in your backpack, you can charge your phone and other devices while hiking. They usually cost less than $50, and many are small enough to fit on a drone: for example, there are 5-watt models weighing less than 200 grams.
Such a device should generate 15-45 Wh of energy per day, although this greatly depends on the conditions. The drone can consume over 100 Wh during flight, but on the ground it will need only 7 Wh per day, so the solar battery can put it into sleep mode for an unlimited time. It will take another 5 watts to maintain the camera and other electronics, so the drone will be able to stay “awake” as long as the sun is shining.
Maybe that's the idea.
“Given the voltage, using a battery to charge the battery is problematic,— DanielR told me. ”Instead, it's apparently just connected to a 5—volt bus that powers the video feed and camera, without any additional circuitry."
In fact, the solar battery allows the drone to act as a lookout with a video surveillance function during daylight hours, saving battery power in case a target is detected.
Solar Jump Drones
It is quite simple to supply drones with commercially available solar panels. A huge number of projects have been implemented in this area, from entertaining amateur endeavors to create their own quadrocopters to serious industrial and scientific work, such as the University of Washington study from 2022, which culminated in the creation of a multicopter with folding solar panels and software for selecting suitable landing sites. The drone charged in three hours, and then could fly long distances in hops — short flights of five minutes.
A similar concept, only with a floating drone, is at the heart of the U.S. Navy's Aqua-Quad project. It carries a sonar sensor for hunting submarines. Swarms of Aqua-Quad could surf the seas like fleets of mobile sonar buoys.
The lighter and more efficient solar panels become, the more useful the technology becomes. In 2024, researchers from Johannes Kepler University in Linz developed ultralight quasi-two-dimensional perovskite solar cells with an output power of up to 44 watts per gram and demonstrated their effectiveness by attaching an array of elements to a toy CX10 quadcopter. The cells weighed down the drone by only 0.25%, but they were able to fully recharge its batteries.
These quadrocopter jumpers are far from “eternal”, unlike the Skydweller (“Inhabitant of Heaven”) The US Navy, which can really fly indefinitely on solar energy. But small drones with unlimited mission time on earth are still useful - and they seem to be in use already.
Crouching Doom: The Solar Swarm
Solar-powered drones can create high-tech “minefields.” They can be controlled by an operator, like the current generation of ambush drones, or they can automatically attack targets that they detect themselves, or they can be guided by other drones. A large minefield can periodically send one or two drones to patrol the surroundings.
And thanks to the ability to constantly recharge, solar drones will be able to go on long-term raids into enemy territory. They will move forward in leaps and bounds for several kilometers at a time. Yes, it's slow, but they can fly low and stealthily. It will be difficult to stop them on the entire border or front line. How many kilometers to the nearest enemy airbase?
The recently spotted Russian solar drone may not be very effective. It is unclear what the benefits of solar cells are and what the losses in flight performance are. At least, there is a clear impression that the very arrangement of the elements interferes with the thrust of the screws.
But this clumsy design could be a harbinger of a new generation of drones, opening up new and dangerous possibilities. Low cost coupled with high availability of all components is in itself a guarantee of rapid development. As we already know, any breakthroughs in this area can become widespread very soon: for example, fiber-optic drones, which emerged from oblivion in just a year and turned into battle winners.
David Hambling is a senior Forbes contributor, technology journalist, consultant, and author based in South London.
