Applications: Aviation, Drones, Space
Pages 243–255 (13 pages)
Text on page 248
UAS/UAM Segments Highly Coupled by Weight, Specific Application, and Propulsion Type
In todayʼs UAS/UAM landscape, aircraft below roughly 25 kgs (small UAS and up through light eVTOL classes are already predominantly battery-native, because electric motors scale efficiently at low mass
Most UAS/UAM missions are power-limited rather than energy-limited (high takeoff power, short duration), aligning well with batteriesʼ strengths of high power density and instant torque
Battery improvements push the crossover upward where ongoing gains in cell-level specific energy, C-rate capability, thermal management, and cycle life steadily raise the feasible MTOW threshold where batteries outperform hybrids or fuel systems, shifting progressively larger UAS and UAM platforms into the battery-dominant regime.
As battery technology improves, secondary benefits compound with simpler architectures, lower maintenance, easier certification, quieter operation, faster turnaround via high-rate charging. This makes batteries not just viable but structurally preferred across an expanding share of UAS/UAM weight classes.
Source: A review of powering unmanned aerial vehicles by clean and renewable energy technologies
Extracted from the PDF; charts and images may read imperfectly.
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