I wish if there’s an actual video of the whole system being operated and not just 3D renders, a lot of questions in mind about some details but probably most of them will be answered in such video.
Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
51–60 of 175 posts
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#52People cannot be anywhere in the radius of the kite cable. Kinda limits where is can be deployed. But the quick deployment could work for some situations.
You can probably deploy it inside the solar farm, most of the times these aren’t open for public to wander around.
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#53How will this work with aviation? I know it probably won't affect most IFR flights, but still possibly dangerous for VFR. Will there need to be a new restricted area for each deployment?
A project I did a couple years ago was to have an onboard SDR that communicates automatically with airplanes in the vicinity, or switching to manual where the drone operator can communicate as if they are “on-board” through the internet by a mic on ground. I can see something like this is doable, with a modified system to fit the length flight, after all, the position is fixed so I don’t think it would be a problem.
Just wondering, how were you communicating to the airplanes in vicinity?
Radio would require the planes to be listening on a specific frequency and ADSB Out would require the planes to have ADSB In which is not guaranteed.
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#54How is the kite raised initially and what happens when air stops, how is it re-raised? Reading the article seems like it's pulled back if air is stopping, and slowly released based on air speed perhaps.
I wonder how they will deal with bird attacks. Falcons and eagles (ironically, they share the same name with this kite) are territorial and will go after these drones. I once had a huge heavy-lift drone that got attacked too. But with a pilot nearby, the easy solution is to fly to a higher altitude, that seems to determine who rules the sky in their eyes apparently. I’m not sure how this kite will manage such situation.
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#55Operating the kite isnt easy on its own. A lot of complexity involved in this. I am intrigued as someone who kites and develops clean energy. I have a tough time seeing how this is a set and forget situation. Maybes it the first step in a direction with something better down the road!
> After the tether reaches its maximum length, the ground station winches the kite back in. Though the Hawk must expend energy for reel-in, it only expends a fraction of the energy, resulting in a net energy gain that varies by wind speed. An entire cycle takes about 100 seconds: 80 for reel-out and 20 for reel-in. This is an interesting approach. Also, the kite is doing eights all the time. Although I suspect that i…
Presumably they can adjust the attitude to make it easier to real in.
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#56I've always loved this idea since hearing the Swift Navigation founders talk about it in their Kickstarter video: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/swiftnav/piksi-the-rtk-...
Glad to hear there are people still working on it.
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#57This is the best article on the problems of airborne wind energy. It is 10 years old but I think
Michael Barnard did a great job explaining all the variants and why it is hard
https://czmphorfqgktmzxu.quora.com/Airborne-wind-energy-a-co...
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#58There's been a recent video by the German "Sendung mit der Maus" (basically how does stuff work for little children) about these kind of generators. I did not double check if the company in the video is the German one mentioned in the article, but chances are high. Video and subs are in German only, but it's less than 10 minutes and one can see a little how it works. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aqfFZDWiJOI
Why are these people wearing safety helmets? Does this imply that everyone living under the kites will have to wear one too?
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
A sailboat typically flies about 5 - 8 square meters of material in the sails, pulling 3 - 4 tons of material around the world ..
This doesn't seem right to me, in my experience a 3 - 4 ton sailboat is around 9m long, which has a sail in the 20 - 40 m^2 range. A 5 - 8 square meter sail is really teenie tiny.
Yeah, that's sailboard territory, or a small dingy with no intention of going fast.
Re: Flying kites deliver container-sized power generation
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
A project I did a couple years ago was to have an onboard SDR that communicates automatically with airplanes in the vicinity, or switching to manual where the drone operator can communicate as if they are “on-board” through the internet by a mic on ground. I can see something like this is doable, with a modified system to fit the length flight, after all, the position is fixed so I don’t think it would be a problem.
Just wondering, how were you communicating to the airplanes in vicinity? Radio would require the planes to be listening on a specific frequency and ADSB Out would require the planes to have ADSB In which is not guaranteed.
It wasn’t an ADS-B, Transport Canada (the FAA equivalent in Canada) doesn’t like ADS-B on drones yet, so the solution was to have an SDR (BladeRF, full-duplex for Tx/Rx), the on-board SBC had a server the received the voice sample (either direct through ground station MIC or automated reading directions, alt, etc every X period of time) and then broadcasting it to the airband, so it’s simply:
Ground station mic -> internet -> server on SBC -> SDR -> airband (AM, I think it was ~120Mhz that time) -> other pilots
If you have the manual communication (where the drone pilot comms and not an automated broadcast), you can pretty much talk with pilots as if you are on-board.
I had a better write up if interested on how it works in here, in the “SDR” section.
https://tamim.io/professional_projects/nerds-heavy-lift-dron...