SkyWave: A Wireless solar powered UAV and EV charger

We are developing a solar powered wireless charger that is specifically developed for charging the lithium batteries used in UAVs and EVs. 

UAVs have the potential to disrupt multiple markets and areas like Agriculture, Logistics, etc. in the world due to their ability to maneuver through complex topographies and optimize travel routes. However, their high cost of operation and limitations of payload capacity, flight time and range have prevented this. Moreover, as most of the parts and components that are used in the drone are imported and outsourced, the cost of UAVs is not affordable for farmers and other budget-conscious markets.

As delivery, logistics and retail giants like Amazon are slowly trying to practicalize drone delivery, the system still remains inefficient due to a number of reasons:

• Multiple sets of drones are required so that when a set of drones need charging, they can be replaced by another drone to maintain a continuous flow of delivery. 
• The range of a drone is halved as it has to return back to the charging warehouse for charging, making the system extremely inefficient in areas with less population
• Drones are power-hungry machines, which consume a lot of electricity. This will be a major cost factor and will also have environmental implications for any company that wishes to set up a drone delivery infrastructure. 

According to our estimates, if drones are made affordable to use with improved range and efficiency they can create a huge impact in countries like Africa, Nepal, India, etc. where the terrain is mountainous or jungle. Be it medicines to deliver from the cities to remote areas or to automate farming processes, UAVs can be game-changing if their glaring limitations are resolved. We predict that in India itself where 63% of its total population is rural, we can impact millions of farmers, villagers and workers with supplies and amenities.

Due to all the reasons we have mentioned, all drone or UAV startups in India are unable to scale or generate increasing profits through drone services. Logistic companies are also unable to use drone technology to ship orders, which can be a game-changer for perishables. Drone logistics has an insane CAGR of approx. 55%, which means the market will reach tens of billions by the decade.

There are also huge macro benefits like first response in calamities, equivalent opportunities for rural people in their village to prevent migration, etc. which UAVs can drive. 

We are offering a solar-powered wireless charging station for drones that can charge a lithium polymer battery of 22.2V, 6cell and 20000mAH capacity within 1 hour. The charging station’s battery itself will be solar-charged within 2.5 hours. We will also be offering an optimization algorithm to make sure the drone delivers maximum packages during its trip from one charging station to the next. It will also show the battery charge of all charging stations and sunlight distribution. If the charging station and drone are owned by different companies/people, we also aim to develop a wallet-based system so that the drone pays some IOTA (or any other currency) to the charging station’s owner. 

The true potential of these charging stations will be when they are used as a network for replenishing drone batteries at regular intervals, improving their range, and optimizing their delivery/surveillance path. We also plan to integrate this network of chargers with a live mobile app or web app where the sunlight distribution, charge, battery health, etc. will be shown for each charging station along with its location. This will help drones to optimize the delivery path for peak efficiency.

It will use cellular modules from to transmit location and other data without wifi requirements. The charging station will use inductive wireless charging for charging the drone, which will have four receiver coils attached to its landing gear. The charging station will have transmission coils that will line up with the receiver coils when the drone lands on the charging stations. The station will also contain a specially designed MPPT circuit for charging LiPo batteries used in drones and UAVs from solar power. The charging station will store solar power throughout the day in a backup battery and burst charge the drone whenever required.

Our solution will serve all general consumers, which will have a chance to install these charging stations on their terraces and roof-tops. Farmers will have a chance to install these systems in their fields for additional income during droughts. We can provide the following examples as use cases:

1. Delivery of medicines or perishables to calamity-affected regions

2. Delivery of products in regions like mountain ranges, plateaus, jungles, etc.

3. Providing additional sources of income for farmers during droughts when their primary source of income (harvested crops) is affected drastically. 

4. Providing logistic companies and drone-tech companies additional range without having to invest in the network itself by paying societies and farms that install these chargers on terraces, farms or roof-tops.

5. Provide societies with a good way to use their solar energy once advanced solar panels become more and more abundant and start replacing traditional windows and bricks. Transparent solar panels are already being researched (https://www.weforum.org/agenda...), so we predict within the next decade or so we will have much more solar energy capture methods than we require, so people will start looking for such alternatives to monetize their energy surplus.

6. Use renewables to power UAVs, which are power-hungry devices but can help us reduce carbon emissions across the world by adopting drones and UAVs for logistics (https://www.nature.com/article...).

7. Propel M2M (Machine to Machine) interactions which will involve the UAVs to automatically charge themselves as required and pay the charging station using crypto or other micro-transaction and remove the requirement of human intervention

As we can see, there are a lot of game-changing benefits that can significantly change how fast UAVs are adopted for various applications that affect the general consumer throughout the world.

We have a team of 3 people for PCB designing, fieldwork, website development, app development, etc. They have over 15 years of combined experience between them and despite being young, all of us have worked on commercial projects for multiple years in the fields of Drone technology, embedded electronics, and agriculture. 

We have developed drone projects in the past and have some prototypes already ready to try our solution on the field. We are in the process of designing our MPPT circuitry and wireless charging transceivers. We have sufficient experience in these fields as I am a telecommunication engineer who has worked on projects involving energy transfer using induction.

All of us have talked to farmers and drone companies to understand their exact pain points and requirements. We have strong confidence that after being market ready our product will see widespread adoption based on the feedback we have received.

We visited various farms and talked with a few drone companies. One of our team members has a startup in agriculture where he works with farmers and interacts with them day in and day out (https://www.neoperk.co/). We are consistently in touch with them and have selected the specifications for our Minimally Viable Product based on their requirements and suggestions. 

As mentioned earlier, our solution is unique because it helps drones become autonomous, improves their range and uses renewable energy to run them, effectively solving multiple challenges the industry is currently facing against its adoption in the fields of agriculture and logistics where it can cause significant disruption. 

We believe that once deployed the network of charging stations will allow for rapid deliveries and services with minimal delays, costs and inefficiencies. We will also continuously work on the charging time, efficiency and output power to reduce charging times and make stop-overs a very small fraction of the total time of their delivery journey. 

All in all, we feel that such charging station networks will help in the adoption of drones for multiple applications, reducing carbon footprints and providing farmers with alternate sources of income during droughts which is a huge issue in our state in India where farmers have faced (https://www.hindustantimes.com...)

1. We plan to impact the lives of at least 100 farmers next year and provide them with these charging stations as an additional form of income.
2. We also plan to test our solutions with drone companies to help them optimize their delivery routes by at least 25%
3. We also plan to implement a pilot network of 25 charging stations in the city of Mumbai where our team resides and test its effectiveness and performance before replicating the same in other cities.

Our technology uses 

• IOT (Internet of Things)
• Drone Technology
• Renewable Energy (Solar)
• Wireless Charging
• AI and Computer Vision
• Cryptocurrency (MIOTA for microtransactions)
• Embedded Electronics
• Lithium Battery Technology and Management
• Power Electronics

amongst other areas...

Currently, our solution is in the Prototype stage but once released, we predict it will serve at least 200 farmers in the first year and logistics consumers in 1 city (preferably Mumbai where we stay). Consumers that opt for drone delivery will see faster delivery times and will be part of promoting lower carbon emissions.

1. Currently, our biggest challenge is financial as we want to develop a refined product that we can deploy in the field and mass produce affordably. 
2. Our second biggest challenge is to improve the charging times without damaging the batteries
3. Our third challenge is to scale up the solution so that it can cater to larger drones, UAVs and even EVs which have much larger battery capacities and charging power requirements.

Apart from this, the entry barriers are minimal and the drone logistics market is up for grabs in our country.