From SF Express to Amazon's Prime Air logistics plan, the unmanned aerial vehicle once left the "altar" and began to move toward the homes of ordinary people. Recently, Facebook spent $60 million to acquire the Titan Aerospace (Titan) Aircraft Corporation of New Mexico, USA. Their drones can fly for five years without landing and can bring the required network connection signals to many people. . In fact, when the civilian small-scale drone industry that is still in the middle of the country is still trying to optimize itself and perform such tasks as equipment security, infrastructure monitoring, precision agriculture, and distribution of parcels, the aerospace startup has become more ambitious. Longer-term planning. Remodeling drones Titan Aircraft Design Company was established in 2012 and has obtained a round of wind betting. From the composition of Titan, we must say that this is a young company. Chief Electrical Engineer Dustin Sanders and founder and Chief Technology Officer Max Yanni are just over 30, and Chief Operating Officer Nick Reynolds is only 24 years old. More than a year ago, Titan introduced two unmanned aircraft, Solara 50 and Solara 60, for a total cost of around $20,000. These are two large, solar-powered high-altitude aircraft. The company plans to allow them to take off once and then be able to achieve no-flying in the air. It will continue to perform cruises for weeks, months, and years just like a small satellite. . For Solara, the difficulty may not be the mode of flight and duration, but where exactly it flies over a period of up to five years. According to Titan's design, the aircraft will fly on top of the troposphere in order to maintain a long flight. This area is about 65,000 feet from the sea level and the wind speed is usually less than 5 knots. "This airspace is relatively calm and far above turbulence or other bad weather that can affect its flight performance. Solara can fly over it for five years." Saunders once said that the weather under the troposphere would damage ordinary aircraft, but For Solara, it is more critical that bad weather obscures the sun, so flying at the tropopause is not prone to damage or failure. Although the concept of "unmanned aircraft" made them eye-catching, this is not Titan's real goal. To some extent, what Titan wants to do is more like a "satellite": it has long life time, and it can fly in a fixed space for a long time. It is easy to operate and can also realize all the functions of a mini-satellite at the same time. In Saunders's eyes, they have to come up with a product that is quite different from the traditional unmanned aircraft and is easier to use than existing drones. "We don't want it to bring any operating costs, we don't want customers to spend money on an aircraft. We want to build a very simple product that can continue to fly without taking up a lot of time and effort from the customer. If only We need a person to monitor the aircraft, and that will change the situation completely. We must strive to change everyone's view of the way the aircraft operates." Saunders said. Transfiguration Mini Satellite Then, Titan's solar drones and traditional near-earth orbit mini-satellites are more practical and cost-effective. According to the internationally accepted algorithm, each satellite is launched on average in the entire commercial satellite industry chain. The satellite manufacturing cost is about US$120 million, the rocket cost is about 25% of the satellite cost, and about US$30 million; the launch cost is also 25% of the satellite, US$30 million, plus the insurance premium is about 20% of the first three items ( $36 million), totaling about $216 million. Of course, such investment is based on large-scale communication satellites. Considering the small satellites in near-Earth orbit, the cost of launching may be lower. However, the cost of Solarara's 20,000 dollars or so is still "astronomical." At present, the low-end civilian drones on the market are as low as a few hundred dollars, but for different purposes, the price of drones is very different. The famous Predator drones are between 2.5 million and 4.5 million U.S. dollars. , and "Global Hawk" quoted at more than 45 million US dollars. Titan's Solara 60 drone can carry about 113 kilograms, enough to put on Internet.org's wireless communications equipment to provide basic network services such as SMS and Facebook. Compared with small satellites, the unit cost of communication coverage is less than 5 US$/km2, which is much lower than that of satellites. In terms of cost, Solara is even better. In fact, Titan initially hoped to sell each aircraft platform to the government, private sector, or research institution for less than US$2 million. These buyers could have their own atmosphere in the atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of the satellite. "Spacecraft". Titan’s philosophy is to allow such an unmanned aircraft, whose lifespan can reach the level of small satellites, to serve as an “atmospheric satellite†to perform most tasks of orbiting satellites, such as atmospheric observation, weather monitoring, and communication broadcast. However, before Facebook, Solara series of solar unmanned aircraft developed by Titan actually has been difficult to obtain investors. Although venture capital agencies are very interested in the development direction of Titan, they think that it is too early to invest in Titan and the performance of their products is still subject to time verification, such as the five-year battery life that Titan said, but the company itself has only been established until now. More than a year. Prof. William Webb, vice president of the American Society of Engineering Technology, said that the idea of ​​using sky platforms to provide network connectivity has been around for decades, from low-orbiting satellites to balloons to drones. However, the difficulty that has been encountered all along is how to allow the air platform to stay in a correct place for a few weeks or months, and maintain a sufficiently low cost. William’s concern is that there are still many difficulties to overcome before drones are provided with network connectivity in remote areas. For example, the first priority is the cost control and reliability of drones, and the development of relevant regulations to make it Can work safely and compliantly in the air. For Titan, it is probably the best choice to be acquired by Facebook. In this way, Titan can get the funds needed to maintain operations and can participate in Facebook's strategic plan. "As the technology matures, the goal of using air platforms to provide network connectivity has become closer and closer, and Facebook's involvement is a major boost in this area," said William. (Xiong Yuan)
Liquid crystal dimming film (polymer-dispersed liquid crystal) glass is a mild laminated glass that can instantly become transparent or opaque by switching the power supply using a dimming film. When the power is off, the incoming visible light scattering passes through the liquid crystal dimming film, and the film becomes translucent; When energized, the incoming visible light transmission liquid crystal dimming film, the film becomes clear. Intelligent dimming glass is made of two layers of glass with a layer of liquid crystal film (commonly known as dimming film, LC film) sandwiched between them. The liquid crystal film is covered in the center by PVB film, and then placed in an autoclave or a general one-step furnace through the process of high temperature and high pressure. In addition to the privacy protection function, the intelligent dimming glass has the application characteristics of all safety glasses (explosion-proof and crack proof). TQX Intelligent glass film integrates R&D/design/production/sales/installation/service; More than 30000 square meters production base+more than 5000 square meters high standard purification workshop There are a number of independent "patents" and a number of "certification"
PDLC Smart Glass,Dimming Glass For Building,Smart Glass Home Decoration,Switchable Glass Privacy Protection,Smart Laminated Building Glass,Office Frosted PDLC Glass Tianqixun Technology , https://www.tqxdisplay.com
