NRL and Pennsylvania State University team members. Photo: NRL.

SolAero Technologies announced that it has delivered its lightweight solar cell technology to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to power its Solar-Soaring Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) demonstrator.

SolAero’s UAV-TJ solar cells will convert solar radiation directly into electricity in order to provide power for extended duration flight, to charge the vehicles’ batteries for overnight flight and to enable the use of payloads that consume too much power for batteries alone. NRL integrated the cells into flexible sheets and ultimately onto the vehicle wing tips, which will generate approximately 40W of power for the multi-flight demonstrations. SolAero also delivered two additional solar sheets that will generate approximately 100W for co-cured integration by NRL into the carbon fiber wings of other demonstrator vehicles.