Drone Battery Systems - Battery Design

Unmanned drone battery systems are interesting in terms of their requirements and hence design.

Drone Battery Requirements

The fundamental parameters are:

Peak takeoff power
Flight time
Range
Peak power required to safely land
Reserve energy required for aborted landing
Accurate SOx parameters
Lifetime

By pulling together data from a number of sources it is possible to see a relationship between power demand and flight mass.

Hence power demand versus flight profile shows a high peak demand on take-off and initial hovering, significantly lower cruise power demand and then a very high demand on landing.

The take-off to cruise power demand is very dependent on the aircraft type. A traditional 4-motor drone will have a much higher cruise power demand than a vehicle that transitions to horizontal flight with a wing supporting the lift.

Cell Selection Starts With the Pack – Not the Datasheet

Most cell selection still begins with datasheets, because they are the only information engineers can easily access early on. That is understandable, but it is also why teams spend months testing “promising” cells that later fail in a real pack. The root issue is simple: a cell is not a battery pack. Effective selection requires balancing four competing dimensions that datasheets rarely capture together: energy density, power density, total cost of ownership, and capital cost.