InterDrone 2019

Make Your Drone Fly Longer and Faster: A Materials Engineering Perspective on Drone Motors (Room Miranda 7-8)

06 Sep 19
11:45 AM - 12:45 PM

Tracks: Development and Hardware

Motor technology is one of the key drivers for electrification. Drones are not different. Today the drone market is growing over 15% YoY and customers are asking for longer and faster flights. However, the concentration on motor technology is less trivial because of the more mature technology space and fewer options to play with. Speaking of options, motor designers typically work with geometry and topology to optimize their design rather than exploring the option of new material or a currently available exotic material. The discussion will focus around finding a novel material on top leveraging a state-of-the-art topology. In that way, we would be able to produce better motor technology for electric and hybrid drones. The session will explore a few advance motor solutions where we can increase thrust, flight time, and reduce the overall loss in the motor. The potential of the discussion will enable a long lasting high performing drone motor, which will essentially help to increase the functionality of the drones. For example, if we can improve flight time by 10%, then the extra time that a rescue drone would be able to stay on the air, it will be beneficial for the rescue mission. Additionally if we can improve the torque by 12-15% then a security drone will be able to travel faster and help more in mission-critical situations.