Why does China need a larger solar drone

[Global Times reporter Liu Yang Liu Yanzun] China's large solar drone "Qi Xing-50" successfully completed its first flight in early September, and many media have asked what level of China's large solar drones are currently at. According to a reporter from the Global Times, at present, a number of medium and large solar drones developed by China have completed the first flight. Chinese experts believe that from the 45-meter-dimensional "Rainbow" T4 solar drone in 2017, to the 50-meter-level "Qi Xing-50" of the first fly in September this year, China is expected to have a wingspan of 60 meters. Level domestic solar drone.

The 60 -meter -level wing exhibition solar drone is about to come out?

"Global Times" reporters combed the development of domestic and medium -sized solar drones based on public information. At present, China ’s research models include at least the“ Rainbow ”T4 solar drone,“ Qi Xing-50 ”solar drone,“ Mozi II ”solar aircraft. Among them, as the first large solar drone to complete the first flight, the "Rainbow" T4 Solar UAV completed the first test flight in 2017, and landed steadily after 15 hours of flight, successfully completed the high -altitude flight test of more than 20,000 meters. This also allows my country to be among the top three in the field of solar drones after Britain and the United States. According to public information, the "Rainbow" T4 unmanned wing exhibition reaches 45 meters.

Experts familiar with drones told the Global Times reporter that this wing exhibition level laid a very high starting point for the development of domestic solar drones. The 45 -meter wingspan is equivalent to the width of the side discharge of 25 cars. The flying height of 20,000 meters is equivalent to the total height of the 48 Tianjin TV tower. This type of solar drone is installed with 8 engines, and the top of the wing is basically covered with solar panels. The core key technologies and equipment are all localized.

According to CCTV reports, the "Qi Star-50" solar unmanned wing show in early September this year reached 50 meters of magnitude, and the flight height could reach 20,000 meters. The aircraft is the first oversized and low -speed drone developed by the Chinese aviation industry. It is also the first time that the large -scale drone with a dual -fuselage layout with a dual body layout and the first large -scale drone with solar energy as the only power energy. The industry believes that the successful solar drone of "Qi Star-50" is successful, which not only boosted the confidence in the development of the solar drone field, but also further promotes my country in the fields of new energy, composite materials, flight control and other fields The development of key technologies. A Chinese expert who is familiar with drones told the Global Times reporter that through comparison of public information, the "Rainbow" T4 drone is similar to the size of the "Qi Xing-50" drone, and the number of engines is general. The ability to say is basically the same.

So is there a larger model in the domestic solar drone matrix?

"Global Times" reporter found that at the Zhuhai Air Show before, "Rainbow" companies exhibited a shrinking solar drone model. According to the propaganda materials released by the "Rainbow" company at the Zhuhai Air Show in 2021, the solar unmanned wing exhibition reaches 60 meters, a limit of more than 20,000 meters, a maximum battery life of more than 30 days, and a mission load weight of 30 kg.

Chinese aviation expert Fu Qianxian was predicted in an interview with the Global Times reporter that in accordance with the laws of the development of solar drones and the development cycle of related models, my country's new solar drone with larger wing exhibitions and greater loads is expected to be in Zhuhai Airlines this year. Exhibition.

Big Wing Exhibition -the key to solar drones

The development of solar drones in the world has also gone through the process of gradually increasing the size of the wing exhibition. Since the emergence of Sunrise-Ⅰ solar drones in 1974, countries have made many breakthroughs in the solar drone field. The National Aeronautics Aviation Administration is dedicated to the development of flying wing solar drones and has gone through multiple models such as Pathfinder, Centurion, Helios, etc. The wingspan increased from 30 meters of Pathfinder to 75.3 meters of Helios. Helios reached a maximum flying height of 29,500 meters in 2003, but was limited by battery performance at the time and only flying for less than a day. The Boeing subsidiary's "Odysseus" flat -streaming solar drone project reached 243 feet (74 meters).

Why does the wing show of solar drones get bigger and bigger? Experts explained to the Global Times reporter that the United States has proposed the "Bald Eagle" drone plan: carrying hundreds of kilograms of load, flying over the air for several years, and a flight height of 17,000 to 27,000 meters. If you have the above parameters at the same time, this drone has high practical value, but to achieve this performance requires extremely high lift ratio, extremely light structural weight, and high -efficiency energy system.

Fu Qianqian said that solar drones are constantly developing, and the wingspan is getting bigger and bigger. The purpose is to make it carry and use a larger weight and use more power consumption in long flights for a month or even months. Large load. Solar drones want to have long flights, especially when uninterrupted cross -day and night flight capabilities, you need to make the wing surface of the solar drone, install more photovoltaic batteries, carry multiple motors, so that the drone is sufficient enough Patrol of the power at high altitude. If the electricity stored in the day cannot be used to use overnight, the retention time of the drone is very limited.

Fu Qianxian explained that if the load carried by the drone is small, it may be difficult to perform related tasks, so this also requires that solar drones are required to increase power generation capabilities by increasing the wing exhibition. In addition, the rising ratio of the exhibition strings is generally higher than that of the wing aircraft, and the aircraft with higher lift ratios usually stays short time and the cruise distance is relatively long. Based on these perspectives, the wing exhibition of solar drones is getting bigger and bigger. However, when the drone is released and climbing, the longer the slender wings are affected by the interference of the external airflow. If the structural strength problem is not resolved, the drone may not reach the task height, and the wings will be broken. Therefore, if you want to increase the wing exhibition, you need to solve the problem of structural strength. Fu Qianxian believes that in addition to the increase in the wing exhibition, the performance of the photovoltaic battery used by the new solar drone will also be significantly improved, which will also improve the power generation capacity of drones. In the technology field of solar photovoltaic power generation, my country is not only the first in the world, but also has relatively fast technological progress. On the whole, the technological development level of large solar drones in my country has been comparable to that of international advanced levels.

Professor Huang Daqing, deputy chief engineer of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Aerospace University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that in the field of solar drones, my country is in the world's leading first echelon in the field of solar drones. It depends on who's industrialization is better, and who puts it into commercial applications first. "

The person in charge of the domestic solar drone project believes that there is no problem with China's solar aircraft hardware. The key is that "software" such as meteorological protection and route planning is still insufficient.

The prospect of "pseudo satellite" is worth looking forward to

An anonymous expert told the Global Times reporter that in Europe and America's solar drone generally designed for about 3 months, and the American "Bald Eagle" plan designs for 5 years. If you have such a blank time, solar drones carry the corresponding load, you can perform multiple tasks such as reconnaissance surveillance, communications relay, forest fire prevention, and marine surveillance. Function, because its empty time is not available for all other aircrafts. Compared with astronauts such as satellites, solar drone signal transmission has a small loss and high accuracy, which can achieve permanently staying in the theoretical target area. It has a wide coverage area and has a long time to stay in the air; compared with the floating aircraft, it has good control and strong maneuverability. Therefore, in the future, solar drones will become an important supplement to air forces, further promoting the integrated development of the sky.

The above experts said that if a solar drone can fly continuously for 100 days and fly 3,000 kilometers per day, 300,000 kilometers can be flying. Of course, due to the efficiency of power generation, solar drones are currently unable to use it globally. They are usually only used between north and south latitude. In order to develop a drone that can achieve overnight flights, especially the drone above the wind above the overnight capability of 17,000-27,000 meters, the requirements are very high. Because only the ability to complete the task can only be guaranteed on the strong wind layer for a long time, otherwise the drones cannot perform the task when it encounters weather such as rain and snow, wind and wind, and the availability will be greatly limited. To achieve such a high -time cruise, it is necessary to solve the technical problems such as the overall, pneumatic, structure, power and energy.

After all these problems are resolved in the future, can they achieve the positioning of "pseudo -satellites"? The above experts believe that this prospect is worth looking forward to. In the future, long -term large -scale solar drones mainly have two application modes: one mode is a fixed -point small radius circling, "hanging" staring at a certain area in the sky; another One model is to run two or three thousand kilometers a day, patrol, and perform fixed -point observations as needed during the patrol. If multiple solar drones are combined, a very effective information acquisition system can be formed. Moreover, the solar drone stations are high. If you cruise at a high altitude of 20,000 meters, the distance can reach 500 kilometers, which is equivalent to covering a area of ​​hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Multi -machine combinations can carry different loads, including radio signals, optical signals, multi -spectrometry sensors, etc. to cope with different environments and climatic conditions, and meet different tasks. Such a comprehensive efficacy ratio will be very high.

If the combination of solar drones and satellite combinations will be better, satellites can achieve multiple, wide -area, and large fields of vision, solar drones can achieve detailed investigation and stare at a area for a long time. Communication can be performed in the civilian field to meet the communication needs of high mountain areas and special areas with difficulty to meet the difficulty of communication coverage. For example, in areas with scarce smoke, if the efficiency of the base station is to be set up, it can "hang" a solar drone at a high altitude and dynamically allocate the transmission rate.

The expert believes that when communicating such as communication guarantee within the region, the high -altitude long -term sailing solar drone may be better than the "star chain" satellite in the United States in terms of performance and efficacy.

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