Long Range VTOL Drone

With the advent of VTOL drone technology, which is the combination of two conventional frameworks that were developed long ago, the industry could enter a new era. VTOL drones, as the name suggests, can take-off and land in vertical mode. This phase is similar to multirotor drones. After take-off stage, multirotor drones stay in vertical mode and navigation is done in the same vertical phase by applying tilt and pan to the drone attitude to move in different directions. On the other hand, when the VTOL takes-off, it transitions into fixed-wing or cruise mode, and then moves forward for navigation. This is similar to fixed wing UAV systems. Fixed wing drones use their wing and thus the applied lift force on the wings to survey. 

Long endurance fixed wing UAV versus Multirotor Drones

One of the main differences between multirotor and fixed wing drones is their performance. Since fixed wing drones consume less energy during their flight, they can reach long flight times of a few hours. Also, long range fixed wing drone can carry heavier payloads compared to multirotor drones. 

Long endurance fixed wing UAV performance

Long endurance fixed wing UAV that uses a fully electrical propulsion system needs to supply its energy from a battery. Batteries have limited energy density, and thus no matter how much you optimize the performance, fully electric long distance drone can not achieve flight times of more than 4 or 5 hours. In recent years, usage of hybrid VTOL drones have been boosted in order to increase the performance. 

Hybrid Long range vtol drone 

Long range VTOL drone that uses a hybrid propulsion system is able to achieve flight times of more than tens of hours. They still use an electric propulsion system for the vertical phase, but use a fuel engine for the fixed wing mode. Filling the fuel tank of these types of long-range vtol drone can allow them to fly over a long distance without the necessity to land and refuel.

Long range VTOL drone application

Long range vtol UAV can be used in many applications including surveillance, reconnaissance, fire fighting, and many other applications. They are able to carry different payloads including a camera, water hose to distinguish fire, or seeds and drops for agricultural purposes. 

Long distance drone with cameras are suitable for applications including surveillance and mapping. Due to the high payload capacity, high quality cameras can be installed on them to capture high resolution images for mapping solutions, or stream Full HD or higher quality video stream to a ground control station using a long range datalink for surveillance. There different type of cameras systems with single or multiple sensors available. Long range drone with night vision is suitable for operation in night, while others with day light sensor or with laser range finders (LRF) are suitable to operate during day or to find the target GPS location, respectively. 

Drone with camera 1 mile (1.7 km)  to 4 mile (>5km) range

In surveillance applications, the installed camera on the drones can be used to identify and track a target. Newer models can carry a camera that supports AI target identification and tracking. The laser range finder can resolve the target’s GPS coordinates for further requirements. The LRF supported distance starts from less than 1 mile (usually a few meters) to more than 3 miles. 

Price Range

The price of  long endurance VTOL UAV systems varies based on the performance of the drone. The price range of them starts from 50,000$ and can go up to more than 1 millions dollars. There are models with impressive performance that are able to carry more than 100kg of payloads and fly more than a few hours.