The American start-up Impossible Aerospace announced a quadrocopter that can fly for up to 2 hours without landing for energy recharge. According to the manufacturer, its "flying battery" US-1 is kept in the air 4-5 times longer than competing models.
For comparison, the volume of the battery of the overwhelming majority of modern drones is enough for 25-30 minutes of flight, after which they need recharging. As the head of the company Spencer Gore, the former engineer of SpaceX and the ex-battery-holder in Tesla, says, the US-1 can fly for so long, since the source of its power "also serves as the primary structure" of the drone.
"Our device is made from a lot of very small batteries, just like a battery pack in Tesla electric cars, and we use them as structural building blocks of our apparatus," Gore said.
US-1 was first shown in early September at the InterDrone 2018 in Las Vegas, reports Reuters. The UAV has a 26-inch frame, thermal and optical sensors, GPS, and can fly at speeds up to 67 km / h for a distance of 75 km. Its battery, according to Impossible Aerospace, is fully charged in less than an hour.
The company already sells US-1 to firefighters, police and reconnaissance and rescue teams in the United States. Deliveries of the drone will begin before the end of the year. The price for the base model, without additional accessories like cameras in the kit, starts at $ 7000.
