Hacker News Reader

I have always wondered if a quadrotor could be set up to harvest wind energy. I'm imagining it propping itself up against a tree or something and letting the wind blow it's rotors to recharge. Does anyone know why that won't work?

These aren't quadrotors, but they're relevant: http://www.makanipower.com/

Re: solar panels - nope, they are not powerful enough... only maybe if these things will hibernate in the sun for long stretches of time between short bursts of activity.

I'm not sure those things are even electic-powered. From what I have heard from modelling, if you want your flying thing to carry any useful load (like, camera and radio) and last over 10 minutes, it is bound to have combustion engine.

Solar panels large enough to be useful would probably affect the aerodynamics too much. Simpler to add a charging station somewhere and have the robot go there when it's "tired."

Part of the reason this works so well is that it's inside. Outside, where you have good sunlight, you have wind that you have to compensate for.