Drone startup Quaternium set a record for the longest flight time of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a voyage that lasted 8 hours and 10 minutes.
Quaternium’s Hybrix UAV, a hybrid fuel-electric multirotor drone, took flight in Valencia, Spain, at 8:52 a.m. and landed at 5:02 p.m., performing a stationary flight of 490 minutes.
The company said that most multirotor drones offer flight times ranging from 25 to 40 minutes, requiring pilots to swap batteries in the field and lose time while charging the batteries.
Previously, Quaternium made a flight of 3 hours and 10 minutes with an earlier version of Hybrix UAV in 2015, which at the time was the longest flight for a multirotor drone.
The need for drones to be in the air longer is critical for first responders in an emergency. The need is also critical during surveillance missions where having a drone in the air for long periods of time can benefit the overall mission and possibly save lives.
From the aftermath of earthquakes in Sichuan to the landfall of Hurricane Florence as well as the raging fires that devastated parts of California, drones have been used to search the land and identify as many people as possible. However, these drones were limited in how much area they could cover before having to recharge or swap batteries.
With this fuel-electric hybrid drone, more time in the air could mean saving more lives, identifying more hot spots and assessing property damage, Quaternium said.
The Hybrix project is supported by the European Union through the Horizon 2020 initiative that fosters disruptive projects in innovation, science and industrial markets.
