Tag Archives: solar-powered

A Laptop With a Solar Panel Lid Just Showed Up at MWC 2026: Hands-on with Oukitel RG14-P

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Solar charging on a laptop lid has been a niche curiosity since Samsung tried it with the NC215S netbook in 2011, a machine that needed two full hours of midday sun to buy you a single hour of runtime. Rough trade. The idea largely disappeared after that, surfacing occasionally in concept form, most recently with Lenovo’s Yoga Solar PC at MWC 2025, which packed 84 solar cells into an ultraslim lid at a reported 24.3% conversion efficiency. Lenovo’s version was sleek, consumer-friendly, and still a concept. Oukitel’s RG14-P, shown at MWC 2026 in Barcelona, skips the concept stage entirely and ships the thing.

The RG14-P pulls 10W from its photovoltaic lid panel, enough to get the 95Wh dual-battery system to 50% in roughly six hours under optimal sunlight. That number sounds modest until you frame it correctly: this laptop is aimed at field engineers, utility inspectors, and emergency responders working in places where “finding a charging point” genuinely isn’t an option. For those people, six hours to half capacity under open sky is pretty meaningful. The dual-battery architecture pairs a 3,000mAh internal unit with a 5,200mAh hot-swappable external battery, meaning you can pull the secondary and slot in a fresh one without shutting the machine down. That feature gets requested loudly on job sites and almost never shows up.

Designer: Oukitel

Under the lid, the RG14-P runs a 14th Gen Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of expandable storage, which puts it well past basic field terminal territory and into legitimate workstation range. The 14.1-inch touchscreen hits 1,000 nits, which matters enormously when your display is reflecting blue sky back at you. There’s also a 180-degree rotating magnetic camera, dual 5W speakers for noisy industrial environments, 65W fast charging as a backup, and IP68/IP69K certification currently in testing. IP69K specifically covers high-pressure, high-temperature jet spray, the kind of thing that happens near industrial cleaning equipment. The machine weighs 3.7kg, which is heavy, but rugged laptops have always made that tradeoff and nobody who needs one complains about it.

The connectivity stack is old-school in the best way: RS232, RJ45, HDMI, NFC, and fingerprint authentication. RS232 is serial protocol territory, the kind of interface still running on factory floor equipment and field measurement tools that haven’t been updated in a decade. Its presence signals that Oukitel actually mapped out real industrial workflows before finalizing the port selection, rather than building around a mood board. Compare that to where Lenovo has been spending its MWC energy lately: a rollable laptop at CES 2026 and a modular AI laptop concept at MWC 2026 that repositions the ThinkBook as an upgradeable platform. Both are interesting industrial design exercises, but neither one is solving a power access problem. The RG14-P is.

There’s also the RG14-L variant, which drops the solar lid and adds a built-in front camping light panel instead, turning the machine into a workstation and a light source simultaneously for night operations. Carrying less gear into a remote deployment is always a win, and building the light into the device rather than handing you a separate torch is exactly the decision you make when you’ve actually talked to the people using it. Pricing and availability are still unconfirmed post-Barcelona, and the IP68/IP69K certification is still in testing, so the most important durability claims haven’t been independently validated yet. Those are real open questions worth watching. But as a product that wraps the solar laptop concept around a genuine use case, with actual hardware specs and a shipping timeline, the RG14-P makes a far stronger argument for the idea than anything that’s come before it.

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Honda enters modular camper market with lightweight, solar-powered trailer

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Honda has built capable off-roading and towing vehicles, but the company has not had a trailer to match. The Japanese auto manufacturer is changing that now with its own towable solar-powered trailer. Weighing under 1,500 lbs., the prototype is light enough to be towed by nearly every SUV, crossover, or EV in Honda’s lineup and even outside.

Designed to rattle the ultralight, modular camper market, the Honda trailer is customizable to make family camping more accessible and enjoyable. Dubbed the Honda Base Station, it is built to be spacious, airy and bright with a rear hatch entry, a slide-out side kitchen, and a pop-up roof that increases headroom and also creates space for additional sleeping at the campsite.

Designer: Honda

The primary objective behind designing the Base Station is to bring the camper experience to more families. In order to achieve that, Honda has kept the prototype trailer incredibly light, which means it can be towed by a wider range of vehicles, opening its accessibility to a bigger audience. The zero-emission towable Honda trailer features a fiberglass upper shell, which rests on a full aluminum cage, including the chassis.

Courtesy of the tailgate entry, an optional teardrop-style door on the side, and five huge windows around the trailer, the interior is very bright. The Base Station opens up to become spacious and packs power options to make it a capable off-grid camper. On the outside, it doesn’t have anything distinct to show, except for the color-changing LED light strip installed around the trailer’s perimeter. On the inside, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Upon entry you get a low floor, useable for storage and maybe hauling a bike. The queen-size bed on the far end folds down from a futon position to sleep a couple. Modular features allow people to use the Base Station however they want. For instance, the roof can be popped up to create seven feet of stand-up space, or use it for an optional bunk bed. The five windows on the sides can be left as they are or replaced with optional features like a slide-out kitchen, an air conditioner, or an outdoor shower, all while still keeping the overall size of the camper compact enough to fit in an average garage or parking lot.

With the additional sleeping arrangement, Honda affirms, the Base Station should have enough room for a family of four. It is designed for off-grid living; therefore, the camping trailer comes with a lithium battery installed underneath the convertible futon, an inverter for backup, and solar panels to keep the camper and its towing EV powered at all times. All of it can be managed by the Base Station App or onboard touch display indoors, Honda notes.

As mentioned, the Honda Base Station is still a prototype. There is no word on its price and availability timeline as of now, but there is a strong voice within the company that the camper should hit production in the near future.

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The Solar Touch Light That Hides Its Tech in Plain Sight

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There’s something quietly revolutionary happening in the world of ambient lighting, and it looks like a smooth wooden pebble you’d want to hold in your palm. Meet Sula, a solar touch light designed by Maryam Mozafari that’s making the case for sustainable design without sacrificing an ounce of beauty or simplicity.

At first glance, Sula resembles a decorative candle that’s been reimagined for the 21st century. Its organic, rounded form sits comfortably in your hand, and the warm wood finish gives it that luxurious, handcrafted quality that makes you want to keep it on display even when it’s not lit. But flip it over or lay it on its side, and you’ll discover its secret: a hidden solar panel that soaks up sunlight and stores energy in its lithium battery.

Designer: Maryam Mozafari

The genius of Sula lies in how effortlessly it integrates sustainability into everyday life. We’re living in an era where solar panels still feel like clunky additions to our homes, awkward compromises between function and form. Sula challenges that assumption entirely. Instead of treating the solar panel as an eyesore to hide, Mozafari designed the entire object around the idea that charging should be as natural as setting something down. Want to power up your light? Just flip it upside down on a sunny windowsill. That’s it. No cords, no outlets, no apps to download.

This simplicity extends to how you actually use the light. A gentle touch activates the soft glow, creating that intimate, relaxing atmosphere we usually associate with candlelight but without the fire hazard or melting wax. There’s something deeply satisfying about touch activation. It makes you feel more connected to the object, more intentional about the mood you’re creating in your space.

The design comes in different forms too, giving it versatility that most ambient lights lack. The classic dome shape looks like a smooth river stone, while the cubic version brings a more contemporary, architectural vibe. Both variations share that same philosophy: beautiful objects that happen to be functional, rather than functional objects trying to look beautiful. It’s a subtle but crucial distinction that separates good design from great design.

What makes Sula particularly relevant right now is how it addresses our complicated relationship with technology and sustainability. We want to make better choices for the environment, but we don’t want those choices to feel like sacrifices. Solar power often comes with baggage: it’s expensive, it’s complicated, it requires installation. Sula strips all that away. It’s a light that charges itself using the sun, and the whole process is so seamless you barely think about it.

The ergonomics deserve attention too. The light is sized perfectly to be portable, to move from room to room as you need it. Imagine bringing a cluster of them to an outdoor dinner as the sun sets, or keeping one on your nightstand for gentle reading light that won’t blast you awake like your phone screen. The soft illumination creates pockets of warmth without overwhelming a space, which is exactly what good ambient lighting should do.

There’s also something wonderfully analog about Sula in our increasingly connected world. It doesn’t ping you with notifications, it doesn’t need updates, and it won’t become obsolete when a new model comes out. It’s just a light that runs on sunshine and responds to your touch. In a market saturated with smart home devices that promise to make life easier but often just add complexity, Sula’s straightforward approach feels refreshingly honest.

Mozafari’s design proves that sustainability doesn’t have to announce itself loudly to be effective. Sula isn’t covered in green leaves or covered with “eco-friendly” labels. It’s simply a beautifully crafted object that happens to run on renewable energy. That quiet confidence is what makes it work. It fits into modern homes not because it’s making a statement about sustainability, but because it’s genuinely lovely to look at and use.

For anyone who’s ever fumbled for a light switch in the dark or dealt with the anxiety of leaving candles burning overnight, Sula offers something better. It’s proof that the future of sustainable design isn’t about compromise. It’s about creating objects so well-designed that their environmental benefits become just one more reason to love them.

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Hourglass Solar Lamp Has No Switch, Just Flip It to Charge or Light

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Solar power usually shows up as something big and remote, panels on roofs, fields of photovoltaics, or chunky outdoor lanterns that live on balconies. Very little of it feels like part of everyday indoor life. Nomad is a portable solar lamp that tries to shrink that idea down to the scale of a desk or bedside table, making daylight into a small daily habit instead of infrastructure you install and forget about.

Nomad is a portable solar lamp charged indoors by natural light, with a symmetrical shape understood like an hourglass. Turning the lamp over switches between two modes, solar charging and ambient lighting, and this flip is the only real interaction. The lamp becomes its own panel and its own shade, depending on which disc is facing up, so the ritual of using it is also the ritual of charging it.

Designers: Moritz Walter, Michelle Muller

In charging mode, the solar panel disc faces upward, and the lamp stands on its light-emitting base, soaking up whatever daylight the room offers. In lighting mode, you flip it so the light disc faces up and the panel becomes the base. There is no separate switch; the act of turning the object over is how you decide whether you are storing light or spending it, which makes the interaction feel almost automatic after a few days.

The subtle LED display on the side of the column is a vertical row of dots that visualizes the light quality in a room. In charging mode, more or brighter LEDs mean better solar potential. This invites you to move the lamp around, onto a windowsill, a stack of books, or a shelf, and see where it charges fastest. Over time, you build a mental map of where your home is secretly good at catching sun.

The visual language is a matte-finished column and two discs in muted colors like light grey and deep blue, with the solar panel flush in one disc and a warm, diffuse light in the other. The lamp looks more like a small side table or plinth than a gadget, which matters if it is going to live in a living room. The tech is present but quiet, so it can sit on books or a credenza without shouting solar device.

Nomad is an autonomous object that draws on solar energy, a freely available, sustainable resource, and makes it usable on a small scale for indoor use. It is not trying to power your house; it is trying to power itself. That autonomy means you can have a pool of warm light in the evening that owes nothing to the grid, just to where you left the lamp during the day and how well the sun reached it.

Nomad quietly reframes daylight from background condition to something you can actively harvest and read. Instead of an app full of charts, you get a lamp you flip and carry, and a line of LEDs that tell you when you have found a good spot. It is a small, almost toy-like way of making solar feel tangible indoors, turning the light already in your home into a resource you can actually use instead of just measuring it on a weather app.

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This solar powered motorcycle never needs charging for true energy independence

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For years, electric mobility has been shaped by predictable patterns: bigger batteries, denser charging networks, and efficiency improvements that feel more evolutionary than revolutionary. Yet the dependency remains the same: riders still need plugs, stations, and the infrastructure that powers their daily movement. In the middle of this familiar landscape arrives a concept that doesn’t try to optimize the system but instead questions why the system needs to exist at all. The SOLARIS Self-Charging Solar Motorcycle by MASK Architects challenges the core assumptions of electric mobility with a vehicle that produces its own energy and redefines the relationship between rider, machine, and environment.

Developed by Öznur Pınar Cer and Danilo Petta, the SOLARIS approaches mobility as something closer to a self-sustaining organism than a machine waiting to be recharged. It operates entirely on power it generates itself, eliminating reliance on fuel stations, external charging points, or electrical grids. This shift reframes freedom for riders, offering movement that isn’t conditioned by access to infrastructure or energy markets. It introduces a future where independence is built into the vehicle, pushing the concept of autonomy far beyond driving modes or connected features.

Designer: MASK Architects

The technology that enables this transformation begins with next-generation photovoltaic cells integrated into the motorcycle’s structure. These high-efficiency solar elements convert light into energy throughout the day, ensuring the system remains active under varying conditions. A defining feature of the SOLARIS is its deployable charging mechanism, which expands into a protective wing when the motorcycle is parked. This design increases the solar capture area by up to 150 percent, allowing the battery to be replenished whether the vehicle is in motion or stationary. The result is a power source that continuously supports itself, removing the downtime associated with conventional charging and allowing the vehicle to remain ready for use without external input.

Visual identity plays an equally important role in its appeal. The deployable wing draws inspiration from the structure of a dragonfly’s wing, merging natural efficiency with a mechanical aesthetic. This biomimetic approach gives the motorcycle a distinctive presence while reinforcing its connection to the environment it relies on for power. The blend of organic influence and engineered precision creates a form that communicates both purpose and innovation, capturing the attention of users who value sustainability and future-focused design.

The potential impact of a self-charging motorcycle extends beyond individual riders. Without dependence on fuel or electricity networks, the concept becomes a practical solution for remote regions, developing communities, and delicate natural environments where infrastructure is limited or intentionally preserved. For logistics operators, tour providers, and municipal programs, the removal of energy costs and reduced mechanical complexity offers clear economic advantages and faster returns compared to traditional electric models.

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DIYer builds first 100% solar-powered drone that flies without batteries

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It’s not usual for DIYers to step up and experiment with the logic of solar-powered devices as we know it. The ideal generally is to keep it simple. Add solar panels, connect them to a battery system, and power the connected devices. But that’s way too straightforward for Luke Maximo Bell, who runs an eponymous YouTube Channel and already has a Guinness World Record to his credit.

Last year, Luke and his father challenged the record for the fastest drone from Red Bull with their 3D-printed drone. It not only officially surpassed the former’s top speed of 350km/h, but actually bettered it by nearly 50 percent, hitting high speeds of 500km/h (310mph). A record-breaking feat verified by the team at Guinness Book of World Records.

Designer: Luke Maximo Bell

The idea of this new solar-powered drone, based on an X-shaped frame, is not to shatter any records per se, but to experiment with the feasibility of a drone that runs completely on solar power, without any battery attachments. Of course, as you see it, a drone like that would practically have little real-world applications, but it could pave the way for more exploration, certainly. Maybe the kite festival of Jaipur, India, could see ropes tethered to kites mounted with solar panels on them someday.

Jokes apart, Luke as for years had this thought of, what if a drone could fly on solar power alone? And this project is “designed to find that out.” From the video demonstration, the drone looks like nothing more than a flying sheet of solar panels, but it has been successfully tested to fly, which is an achievement.

The idea of the drone is based on two parts, as Luke puts it, the drone itself (comprising antigravity motors residing on 3D printed mounts, propellers, and frame. And the second part being the photovoltaic panels. Both are combined to create this sun-loving drone that keeps airborne as long as the sun shines on it. The 18-inch X-frame of their unique drone is made of carbon fiber tubing, and it features the decisive flight controller installed right at the X intersection of the two frame bars holding the propellers at their ends.

Understandably, the entire contraption has taken Luke hours of jostling through the odds, check out the video above for more details; but he has been able to pull it off. With solar panels and no batteries on board, the drone does take off after a few nervous minutes on 100 percent solar power alone. The flight was a “bit shaky,” Luke says in the video, but it’s “flying,” and the testing was “successful,” he proudly notes.

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This Solar Bench Just Turned Every City Street Into a Charging Hub

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Picture this: you’re exhausted from walking through the city, desperately need to charge your phone, and suddenly spot the perfect bench bathed in soft light. You sit down, plug in, and realize this isn’t just any piece of street furniture. It’s actually harvesting energy from the sun and transforming the urban landscape around you. Welcome to Perovia, a design project that’s making us rethink what public spaces can be.

Created by TAIWA, a contemporary design laboratory that lives at the crossroads of technology, sustainability, and spatial aesthetics, Perovia is essentially an urban bench on steroids. But calling it just a bench feels like calling a smartphone just a phone. It’s so much more than that.

Designer: TAIWA

The name itself is a clever nod to perovskite, a revolutionary solar material that’s been causing quite a stir in renewable energy circles. Unlike traditional bulky solar panels, perovskite cells are flexible, efficient, and can be integrated into all sorts of surfaces. TAIWA took this cutting-edge tech and asked a simple question: what if our city furniture could work as hard as we do?

The result is something that looks like it rolled out of a sci-fi movie set. Perovia functions as what the designers call “a node of light in the urban circuit.” During the day, it quietly soaks up solar energy through its integrated perovskite cells. As evening falls, it transforms into a glowing beacon, providing ambient lighting that makes public spaces feel safer and more inviting. But it doesn’t stop there. The bench also features USB charging ports, because let’s be honest, in 2025, a dead phone battery is basically a modern emergency.

What makes this design particularly brilliant is how it addresses multiple urban challenges simultaneously. Cities everywhere are wrestling with sustainability goals, trying to reduce their carbon footprints while making public spaces more livable. Street lighting gobbles up enormous amounts of electricity, and providing public charging stations requires complex infrastructure. Perovia tackles both issues in one sleek package.

But beyond the recognition and the tech specs, what’s really exciting about Perovia is its philosophy. TAIWA describes being inspired by “the silent rhythm of cities,” and you can feel that in the design. Cities have their own pulse, their own flow of energy and movement. Most street furniture just sits there passively, but Perovia actively participates in that urban metabolism. It takes energy when the sun is high, gives light when darkness falls, and serves people whenever they need it.

This kind of thinking represents a fundamental shift in how we approach urban design. For too long, sustainability features have been add-ons, afterthoughts bolted onto existing infrastructure. Perovia shows what happens when you bake sustainability into the core concept from the beginning. The result doesn’t just work better, it looks better too. The bench manages to be both futuristic and inviting, high-tech without feeling cold or intimidating.

Of course, the real test will be seeing these benches roll out in actual cities, weathering real conditions and serving real communities. Will the technology hold up? Can it scale affordably? These are questions that only time will answer. But as a proof of concept and a vision of what’s possible, Perovia absolutely delivers.

We live in a world where climate change dominates headlines and cities struggle to reinvent themselves for a sustainable future. So we need designs that don’t make us choose between functionality and environmental responsibility. Perovia suggests we can have both, wrapped up in a package that actually makes our cities more beautiful and livable. That’s the kind of design innovation worth getting excited about.

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More than a backpack, the solar-powered Makeshift Traveler is helping California’s homeless live better

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The best part about my job is, I get to see so many interesting products designed for a spectrum of users. While some cater to the elite and embody luxury, others — such as the HomeMore Project’s Makeshift Traveler — truly touch the heart because of the purpose behind their creation. Since the introduction of the first Makeshift Traveler (a backpack, per se; more on it below), the not-for-profit organization behind the creation has delivered upward of 1,200 units to individuals experiencing homelessness in California.

The target with the fourth edition, built in 2025 with enhanced design and new features, is to deliver another 2,000 units across 25 cities in California and counting. The project that started from Tenderloin in San Francisco has, with feedback from unhoused people, reached a point where it’s more than an ordinary backpack. It’s a self-sustaining unit that is designed to provide connectivity, shelter, resources, and assistance to the homeless.

Designer: The HomeMore Project

Conceived with the idea to empower the unsheltered homeless community in California, the Makeshift Traveler backpack, with an integrated solar panel, allows the owner to charge their phone and stay connected. The backpack comes integrated with a 4-watt polycrystalline solar panel connected to an internal 10,000-mAh rechargeable power bank, and allows the user to connect their mobile device through the integrated USB port. The backpack comes with many additional utilities, such as a tent and sleeping bag, and also has an FM radio and flashlight inside the pack, which can be charged directly by the power bank.

The Makeshift Traveler requires almost six hours of sunlight to juice up the internal power bank, which can deliver enough power to charge up to three standard smartphone batteries in one full charge. On overcast days or in areas of less sun, the backpack’s power station is chargeable via a wall charger.

As for the construction, the outer surface of the pack is water and weather-proof and is constructed from recycled plastic bottles. With a solar panel embedded on the top and a rain poncho in the pocket at the bottom, the Makeshift Traveler backpack comes with a urethane-coated nylon pillow that can be puffed by stuffing in a piece of clothing. Along with the utilities, the backpack with an anti-theft zipper also features an ID card, a hygiene kit, a 24 oz water bottle, Bombas socks, and an informational brochure listing 15 local partner services ranging from shelter, mental health services, food distribution, wellness, and more.

Of course, this is not an open market product. You cannot get it off the shelf, but if you’re concerned and interested in donating, you can check out the HomeMore Project’s website. Or if you want to wait and ponder introducing a backpack into your community, you have about a year to do so. The fifth edition of the Makeshift Traveler is on the cusp – to release in 2016 – and it will come with reflectors on the front and rear for better nighttime visibility in the dark.

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This solar powered electric scooter is a cooler sibling of the Motocompo moped

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We’ve seen Motocompo knock-offs, personal electric commuters and cargo bikes that would put a four-wheeler to shame. This one by San Francisco-based company Otherlab is radically different though. Dubbed Lightfoot, the electric cargo scooter has built-in solar panels to employ limitless solar power to charge the in-built battery.

The electric scooter’s 120W solar panels sandwich the considerably large 45.2 L storage compartment which is big enough to store essentials like a backpack, grocery bags, books, or any other essentials. One of these panels is hinged to allow access to the inside compartment. This space is also used to conceal the UL-certified 1.1 kWh battery and the 600W on-board charger.

Designer: Otherlab

The padded seat on the bike is comfortable enough for a single rider, however, if a pillion needs to take the ride home that option is also open as the bike has footplates too. Lightfoot is powered by a couple of 750W brushless DC motors that generate 90Nm peak torque and hurl it to a top speed of 20 miles per hour. Whether it can scoot around medium-grade hilly terrain is still not clear, but based on specifications alone it should be able to do that. The motors are plugged into the 1.1kWh battery capable of having a 37-mile range on a single charge.

The solar panels charge up in broad sunlight to add around 3 miles with an hour of charge, and 18 miles on a full sunny day.  People who are heavy users will mostly rely on the wall plug charging option and the solar charge will be a bonus. The bike will be a good option for users who will use it for short trips to the supermarket or local metro station.

Otherlab has kept in mind the maintenance and repairability of the scooter at any service center or local garage since it comes with off-the-shelf components making up the functional parts of the ride. Another set of deal-making features are the one-year complete bike guarantee and two-year mechanical guarantee. To top it off you’ll also get the “ironclad buy-back guarantee” as the company is promising a buy-back option if the user is not satisfied with LIghtfoot. Interestingly the goofy little scooter will be available to buy in the US from January for a price of $4,995. We can expect it to make an appearance at CES 2025 in Las Vegas.

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Chinese researchers test smallest solar-powered drone that can fly as long as it gets sunlight

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A major problem with tiny flying drones, referred to as micro aerial vehicles (MAVs), is that they cannot fly for a very long duration. Especially the MAVs weighing under 10 grams, as such micro vehicles can only stay airborne for about 10 minutes. Using sunlight as a constant power source could provide a solution to keep such bird-sized drones afloat and flying longer.

However, it’s not as simple as sticking a solar panel on the wings. Traditional propulsion systems used in micro aerial vehicles aren’t very efficient at making appropriate use of generated solar power. Moreover, these tiny drones can’t carry much payload, making them inconsistent and unworthy in support operations, search, and rescue.

Designer: Beihang University

The CoulombFly, a small, ultra-efficient drone powered by static electricity was introduced as a solution to the abovementioned problem by scientists at Beihang University in Beijing, China. The super-small drone uses a special propulsion system that can lift to a decent height while using very little power for the same. The vehicle itself weighs just 4.21 grams – which is extremely lightweight – has a wingspan of 20 cm, and can carry a payload of roughly 1.59 g.

According to the researchers, CoulombFly is about ten times smaller and weighs 1/600th the weight of the previous, smallest and lightest solar-powered aerial vehicle out there. Dubbed then as the smallest and lightest solar-powered aerial vehicle, it is small enough to sit on the palm and is engineered to fly indefinitely while the sun shines on its wings. Mingjing Qi professor at Beihang and the lead of the project says he doesn’t want to settle for this size of the drone. “My ultimate goal is to make a super tiny flying vehicle, about the size and weight of a mosquito, with a wingspan under 1 centimeter,” Qi notes.

Unlike the previous tiny aerial vehicles that rely on electromagnetic motors and generate power using electromagnets; CoulombFly uses an electrostatic field to produce motion. With a mass of 1.52 g, electrostatic motor can generate lift-to-power efficiency that’s twice or even thrice that of traditional MAV motors. The electrostatic motor of the tiny drone comprises two rings: the inner ring is a spinning motor with 64 carbon fiber slats covered with aluminum foil, while the outer ring has eight alternating pairs of negative and positive carbon fiber electrode plates also bonded with foil. When the CoulombFly is exposed to sunlight, the outer ring with its 16 plates generates electric fields. Since each electrode plate is embedded in aluminum brushes, these brush against the rotor slats on the inner ring spinning the propeller and lifting the drone up until the sun is shining on it.

 

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