The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) will use Alta Devices' "highly efficient, flexible, and light-weight" solar technology to help power the "breakthrough" Hybrid Tiger UAV. The Hybrid Tiger is a project designed to create a Group-2 UAV that will stay aloft for at least three and a half days, and Alta Devices says that technologies developed for the project will be applicable to other unmanned vehicles. "Widespread use of small UAVs in both the military and industry has been limited to-date by endurance. The Hybrid Tiger will demonstrate that very long endurance flights, with sophisticated telemetry and capabilities, can be achieved with the inclusion of solar arrays," says Jian Ding, Alta Devices CEO. "This project will open the door for many new solar powered UAV applications, and we look forward to achieving next generation breakthroughs via this cooperative effort."

Flexible, thin-film solar panels from a Silicon Valley company are allowing drone makers to keep their craft in the sky for hours longer than is possible with batteries alone. The panels, from Alta Devices in Sunnyvale, are produced on thin plastic sheets that can be stuck on the top frame of drones like the Bramor ppX, developed by Slovenia's C-Astral Aerospace. On Tuesday, the two companies showed off a version of the drone with six solar panels affixed to its top. The basic drone can stay aloft for 3.5 hours, but the addition of the solar panels has extended this by two hours, they said. The two plan to offer a solar version of the drone commercially.