Domestic High-Altitude Solar-Powered UAV Achieves Longest Flight Time in Korea
[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Junho] A high-altitude solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed with domestic technology has successfully completed a long-duration flight of 53 hours.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) announced on the 26th that the 'High-Altitude Long-Endurance Solar UAV (EAV-3)' achieved the longest continuous flight time in Korea, including a 16-hour flight in the stratosphere at altitudes between 12 km and 18 km.
The EAV-3 is an aircraft capable of long-endurance flights lasting several months in the stratosphere above 12 km altitude, performing missions such as real-time disaster monitoring, illegal fishing surveillance, communication relay, fine dust and weather observation, complementing satellites. Its ability to carry out missions in an eco-friendly manner while reducing costs has led to ongoing technology development in various countries.
The world record for the longest flight was set in 2018 by Zephyr, developed by Airbus in France, with a continuous flight lasting 26 days. At that time, the UAV was equipped with high-performance batteries from the American company Empyreus.
KARI plans to further improve the performance of the EAV-3 by utilizing high-performance battery packs and solar cells currently under development. The goal is to enable long-endurance flights lasting days to months in the stratosphere above 12 km altitude, performing various missions such as ground observation, atmospheric data acquisition, real-time video transmission, communication relay, and weather observation.
KARI stated, "We plan to closely cooperate with related industries to share the results of this flight test with domestic companies and accelerate the development of domestically produced high-performance batteries for high-altitude applications."
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