Battery-Free Drone Designed to Fly as Long as the Sun Shines

The father and son team behind the world’s fastest quadcopter is back, and this time, they’ve built something that looks more like a flying solar farm than a racing drone. Their goal? A multirotor that can stay in the air for as long as the sun keeps shining.

If that sounds ambitious, it should. After all, this is the same duo who created the Peregrine project, which set the Guinness World Record for the “Fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter” at 480 km/h, or just under 300 mph.

That incredible feat came from Luke Bell and his father Mike, two engineers who love pushing drone tech to its absolute limits. While most of us are happy to fly a drone for a few minutes, the Bells are out there asking, “What if we didn’t need batteries at all?” New Atlas brought this story to our eyes.

A Record That Refused to Stand Still

DroneXL readers might remember our coverage of Luke Bell’s Peregrine 3 project in another story that detailed how he reclaimed the world speed record with a screaming-fast quadcopter that hit 585 km/h.

This new solar drone shows the same creative spirit but takes it in the opposite direction. Instead of chasing raw speed, the Bells are now chasing endurance. Earlier this year, their previous record had been broken by student Samuele Gobbi and his Fatboy 2 drone, which reached 557.64 km/h (346.5 mph). Not ones to back down, the Bells returned with the Peregrine 3, took it to Dubai, and officially averaged 570 km/h, earning another Guinness World Record. That might have been enough for most people. But instead of doubling down on power and performance, they started thinking about sustainability and simplicity.

A Drone Without a Battery

Their latest creation looks nothing like the Peregrine. Picture a cross-shaped carbon fiber frame, lightweight Antigravity motors, and 18-inch carbon props from T-Motor. Add 3D-printed mounts, a flight controller, and several tiny cameras that feed live POV footage to a VR headset.

Then, cover the entire structure with solar panels.

Twenty-seven of them, to be exact. Fragile, ultra-thin photovoltaic cells wired in series to generate around 150 watts of power during ground tests. That’s not much compared to a typical drone battery, but it’s enough to lift and sustain a featherlight craft when the sun is shining bright. The Bells mounted the panels to 3-mm carbon fiber tubes, carefully balancing weight and strength. They even had to replace a few broken cells after a run-in with their family cat. Once it was ready, they packed everything into a car and headed to an open field for the big test.

The First Solar Flight

The drone lifted off gracefully, powered only by direct sunlight. No batteries. No capacitors. Just pure solar energy driving the motors in real time. It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t flashy, but it worked. It proved that sustained, battery-free multirotor flight is possible when sunlight is available.

Sure, the system is fragile and experimental, but it opens up a new frontier in drone design—one where flight time isn’t limited by charge cycles, but by daylight.

DroneXL’s Take

Our friend Zach Peery recently showcased how Luke Bell’s Peregrine 3 became the world’s fastest drone. This follow-up proves that Bell isn’t just obsessed with speed; he’s obsessed with possibilities. From blistering records to battery-free flight, his projects reveal a genuine curiosity about how far drones can go in either direction.

It’s easy to laugh at a drone made of fragile solar panels, but give the Bells a few more experiments and they might just build something that never needs to land. If bats can fly through the dark using sound, and now drones can fly forever under the sun, maybe nature’s still got us beat, but personally I think that’s not for very long.

Photo credit: Luke and Mike Bell