We’ve seen how drones can be used for entertainment and industrial purposes, but regardless of what they’re used for, they all share a similar disadvantage and that is poor battery life. For the most part a lot of drones are capable of only staying in the air for about 25 minutes, which means that using them for extended periods of time is impossible.
However a US-based startup by the name of Impossible Aerospace claims that their drone, the US-1, will be capable of flight times of up to 2 hours. The company is also claiming that the drone will be capable of recharging up to 75% of its battery in only 45 minutes, meaning that users won’t have to wait too long to get their drones back in the air again.
With an estimated flight time of 90 minutes to 2 hours, recharging 75% in 45 minutes means that users can get at least an hour’s extra flight time. The company states that they are able to achieve this as they approached the design of the drone with a “battery-first approach”. Speaking to Forbes, CEO Spencer Gore revealed that basically the body of the drone itself is packed with batteries which allows it to stay in the air longer than the competition.
According to Gore, “We realized that you can make battery packs that are structural, that integrate safety technology at the pack level to deal with the unpredictable characteristics of the lithium-ion battery. Our vehicle will be made with lots of really small cells, just like Tesla’s battery pack is made of really small cells, and we use those as structural building blocks for our aircraft.”
Unfortunately the US-1 will not come cheap and is priced starting at $7,000 and will be shipping out later this year.