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Students Set Altitude Record With Unmanned Model Plane

by Warren Riddle on September 23, 2009 at 08:35 AM


Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) perform a wide variety of important tasks for NASA and the U.S. military. The drones are deployed during times of conflict to track and annihilate enemy combatants, but they can also be used to monitor weather, agriculture, pollution, traffic, and fires. The only drawback to the awesome little guys is that they can be exorbitantly expensive, sometimes costing hundreds of millions of dollars for a single vehicle.

Last week at the NASA Dryden center, Stanford University Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Juan Alonso, along with a team of graduate students, attempted to break the altitude record for a self-piloted plane (one that flies without human aid, using electronics and software). The incredibly frugal yet highly creative team built two $500 electrically-powered balsa wood UAVs. The winner of the two, the Blue Panther, managed to eclipse standing records by twice climbing over 7,000 feet and properly landing. On its third flight, it reached a staggering 8,169 feet, but crashed back to Earth after leaving NASA airspace.

Grad student Geoff Bower told the Stanford News, "We established a reasonable record, of around 7,000 feet, which is pretty impressive." He's confident they can do better. Seeing as the team set the record after a mere 10 weeks of work, the group's research seems like it would be an incredibly wise investment for certain organizations looking to reduce spending. [From: Stanford News, via DVICE]

Tags: airplane, drones, military, NASA, space, Stanford University, StanfordUniversity, UAVs

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