While drones are increasingly used in various fields, achieving longer flight times remains a key challenge for long-distance flights. To address this, researchers at MIT are now searching for solutions. In their experiments, they used a fixed-wing drone that could perch on a charging cable and utilize the resulting magnetic field to recharge.
While flexible rotor drones are better at perching on objects than fixed-wing drones, the latter are faster and more energy-efficient, so researchers ultimately chose fixed-wing drones. The main challenge for researchers was finding a way to stop the drone's forward propulsion, halt it, and hook it onto a power line.
Researchers then turned to birds like eagles and pigeons, hoping to find a solution by observing their behavior. Currently, they have developed a small glider made of foam material that can hook onto a power charging cable.
In fact, MIT is not the only company seeking answers to this question. The University of Illinois, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the University of California, San Diego, and Aero Environments are also conducting similar research and development.
