The Challenge 

Aviation contributes to a big part of emissions globally, this remains a huge problem. Around 80% of aviation C02 emissions are emitted from flights of over 1500 kilometers, for which there is no practical alternative mode of transport. Current solutions aren’t there yet or don’t scale well enough. Therefore something has to change structurally. A transition needs to be started towards electric aviation, possible of overcoming the problems the sector currently faces, to empower more important players to embrace the transition towards a sustainable form of transport and aviation.

The Solution

We envision a world where drones are interconnected in the sky. Our goal is to create a network of drones that can interact with each other on a whole new level. Rather than increase the range of a single drone, we are creating a network with a scalable range, practically endless. Using this network, we can connect Europe through the sky, in a sustainable way, electrically. We want to create the technology that enables the first steps of this network. The idea is that a cargo drone, transporting high-priority products or necessities, is refueled in air by a second drone. The second drone carries a second battery and will switch the empty cargo battery using artificial intelligence. The cargo drone flies past charging points, created by our network. By creating this battery swap technology, we can innovate alongside the battery developments which will reduce the number of swaps in time.

The Mission

Redefine flying. We want to redefine flying in order to make an impact in the world of sustainability. Our goal of team Aero is not to increase the range of aerial vehicles, such as airplanes or drones. Multi-billionaire companies are investing a lot of money to increase the efficiency of aerial vehicles or the efficiency of batteries. It might not take very long and we can make us of hydrogen batteries, which improves the capacity of batteries significantly. However, these remain relatively small improvements on the range of aerial vehicles. Most flights are longer than 1500 km. In order to solve this problem, we need to change the concept of flying. A single aircraft will not be able to transport goods or people in the near future at this pace.

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