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SolarAnywhere® is often associated with utility-scale or distributed PV, but our solar irradiance data powers a lot more than solar plants. A great example: Piotr Lichota at the Warsaw University of Technology is using SolarAnywhere to figure out when to launch solar-assisted Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and how long they can realistically stay in the air.
Solar UAVs are being developed for autonomous environmental monitoring, precision agriculture and search-and-rescue. The success of this technology, however, depends heavily on weather. Weather unpredictability, such as dynamic low-altitude cloud cover in regions like Central Europe, can greatly limit their potential applications.
Modeling UAV flight duration probabilities using SolarAnywhere
To realistically assess whether a UAV can successfully complete a mission, Piotr realized he must find a way to precisely replicate real-world atmospheric volatility. To move past theoretical clear-sky assumptions, he built a simulation framework on top of the SolarAnywhere 25+ year, satellite-derived irradiance dataset.
