Question: How will the new helicopter drones be powered, petrol? Electric? Hybrid?

Sophie Carr answered on 7 Jan 2020:

This is a really great question and the honest answer at the moment is that no-one is really sure. There is a lot of work going on to create electric and hybrid aeroplanes and drones but the limiting technology are the batteries both in terms of their weight and the time they can power flight for. It’s a lot like the early mobile phones when the batteries were huge (and wouldn’t fit into a bag) but over time they have gotten smaller and lighter. . If we want them to stay up for a long time, then they could take inspiration from the solar powered Solar Impulse 2 that circumnavigated the earth but if you look at this glider you’ll see the shape is very different to a drone to allow for the solar panels needed – it’s back to the battery issue. So the answer really depend upon what we want the drones to do – small drones are already battery powered. For bigger drones my guess, and it is just that, is that we’ll start with hybrid drones and then move towards electric.Others will know more than me!