The Tethered Uni-Rotor Network: Eternal Flight UAV

Re:The Tethered Uni-Rotor Network: Eternal Flight UAV by zackmorris on Tuesday February 19, 2019 @02:54PM (#19202177)

I think there is merit for the last idea in the article - some kind tethered drone array as a windmill using something like autorotation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation

Similar ideas have been suggested using balloons:

http://latesttechnology-world.blogspot.com/2013/07/magenn-ai...

https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_turbine

An array of wind-powered drones could scale well beyond what's possible with a traditional wind turbine, since most of the torque gets applied at the wingtips. There might be advantages with inconsistent wind gusts too, since the rotor could wind up in strong wind and unwind in weak wind. Startup costs would be negligible since a few drones could start the rotor and more could be added as needed. It might even by safer for birds if a drone array turns slower than a fixed rotor.

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Re:The Tethered Uni-Rotor Network: Eternal Flight UAV by bennylope on Tuesday February 19, 2019 @03:23PM (#19202432)

Not really sure how those ideas are all that similar to the TURN here. Those are long flying and involve tethering, but the flight systems are quite different and they're tethered to the ground.

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