Matias Maurer
Class of 2025Castelldefels, Catalonia
About
Hello! My name is Matias Maurer and my polygence project is on the integration of perovskites and solar energy into drones. I chose to work on this project because I am interested in renewable energies, drones, and engineering. After this project, I hope to be able to keep doing similar projects and research at a higher level in university.Projects
- "Performance Evaluation of Perovskite Solar Cells Integrated into Lightweight Drone" with mentor Spencer (Oct. 10, 2024)
Matias' Symposium Presentation
Project Portfolio
Performance Evaluation of Perovskite Solar Cells Integrated into Lightweight Drone
Started Jan. 18, 2024
Abstract or project description
Drones are incredibly useful in remote or difficult environments, such as the wilderness, ocean, high altitude or even space. However, it is exactly in these locations where access to power can be the most challenging. With sunlight available in many of them it makes sense that a drone enhanced with solar cells on it could be more efficient with longer flight times and more autonomy.
However current solar drones are limited in their usefulness by the weight to efficiency ratio of the solar cells, making docking and recharging more logical than inflight recharging. The exception is some fixed wing drones. Even the Ingenuity drone on Mars that had solar cell attached to it only did 90 second flights per day. Advancements in materials though might make inflight solar charging more possible in the future. For instance, perovskites are rapidly becoming more efficient, cheaper, and more durable. They have also been found to not only survive the rigors of space but oddly have higher efficiency after 10 months in space.
Finally, a team at Kepler university has created a quasi 2D perovskite quadcopter drone with 1-inch cells, 1/20 the width of a human hair, that demonstrates the ability of this material to be light enough to be viable. My research will be to take a common drone, modify it with perovskite solar cells and collect data on its performance in various conditions and over time.