By Citius Minds

• Jul 5, 2016
• 3 Comments

Amazon has recently been named as the world’s smartest company as per MIT’s annual list. There is no doubt that amazon is working on products and technologies across domains right from IoT to designing great book readers to smart homes etc. It is also invested heavily into the idea of delivering packages via drones within hours of the user ordering them.

They are heavily spending in terms of R&Ds of drones, their safety, their robustness etc. One of the biggest challenges right now is the battery life of drones. The concerning issue is of course the fact that what happens when battery runs low while it’s aerial. That can have serious repercussions in terms of safety of people in the vicinity of the aerial radius. Last week, amazon was issued a patent U.S 9,376,208 titles ‘On-board redundant power system for unmanned aerial vehicles’, which describes how the use of combustion engines are used to power the battery chargers on board which results in propelling the drones.

The development of an on-board battery charger is ingenious and it works by calculating the flight distance, the duration of the flight and assesses whether there is enough charge on the battery to make that flight successful and if not, it charges the battery to that optimum level by initiating the combustion engine. This can be a game changer for Amazon if they are able to successfully pull this off.