{"slug": "solaranywhere-r-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight", "title": "SolarAnywhere® Supports Solar PV & Unmanned Flight!", "summary": "SolarAnywhere's satellite-derived irradiance data is being used by Piotr Lichota at Warsaw University of Technology to model flight duration probabilities for solar-assisted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), enabling risk-oriented design for green technology applications. The stochastic framework, built on SolarAnywhere's 25+ year dataset, quantifies mission success probabilities under real-world atmospheric variability, showing that a midday launch offers better odds of longer missions than an early-morning one. This research, funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2025/09/X/ST8/00294), demonstrates that finance-grade solar resource data can support next-generation green technology beyond solar plants.", "body_md": "# SolarAnywhere® Supports Solar PV & Unmanned Flight!\n\n*Support CleanTechnica's work through*[a Substack subscription](https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe),[on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/cleantechnica), or[on Stripe](https://cleantechnica.fundjournalism.org/contribute/). Help us produce all of the[high-quality, original content we publish week after week](https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/14/10/)despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.[SolarAnywhere®](https://www.solaranywhere.com/) is often associated with utility-scale or distributed PV, but our solar irradiance data powers a lot more than solar plants. A great example: [Piotr Lichota at the Warsaw University of Technology](https://www.meil.pw.edu.pl/dm/DM/People/Piotr-Lichota-Ph.D.-D.Sc) is using SolarAnywhere to figure out when to launch solar-assisted Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and how long they can realistically stay in the air.\n\nSolar UAVs are being developed for autonomous environmental monitoring, precision agriculture and search-and-rescue. The success of this technology, however, depends heavily on weather. Weather unpredictability, such as dynamic low-altitude cloud cover in regions like Central Europe, can greatly limit their potential applications.\n\n### Modeling UAV flight duration probabilities using SolarAnywhere\n\nTo realistically assess whether a UAV can successfully complete a mission, Piotr realized he must find a way to precisely replicate real-world atmospheric volatility. To move past theoretical clear-sky assumptions, he built a simulation framework on top of the [SolarAnywhere 25+ year, satellite-derived irradiance dataset](https://www.solaranywhere.com/products/solaranywhere-data/).\n\nThe process uses Maximum Likelihood Estimation to identify clear-sky DNI and DHI profiles. These profiles demonstrate significantly lower errors than the standard reference, long-term averages or typical meteorological year formulations. The high-fidelity datasets were further used to build a cloud cover model, as default clear-sky assumptions were found to be inherently insufficient in regions characterized by high weather variability, such as those in Central Europe.\n\nWith this stochastic framework, Piotr quantified the probability of achieving a target flight duration for a given time, location and flight configuration. As shown in Figure 1, a midday launch has meaningfully better odds of a longer mission than an early-morning one—same UAV, same day. That’s the kind of insight you can’t get from a clear-sky assumption.\n\n### Enabling next-generation green technology\n\nUsing this method, Piotr was able to demonstrate how mission feasibility can be impacted by adjustments in solar-to-wing area ratios, battery capacities or the selection of a specific takeoff hour. Instead of estimating an unrealistic theoretical maximum flight duration under a clear sky, the model generated probability curves of mission success. Thus, the framework facilitates the transition towards risk-oriented design for green technology applications.\n\nThis use of SolarAnywhere is a great reminder that finance-grade solar resource data isn’t just for solar developers—it can help design the next generation of green technology, in the sky as well as on the ground.\n\nWe thank [Piotr Lichota](https://www.linkedin.com/in/piotr-lichota-36ba2395/) at the [Warsaw University of Technology](https://www.linkedin.com/school/warsaw-university-of-technology/), [Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering](https://www.linkedin.com/company/meil-pw/) for the collaboration.\n\nThis research was funded in whole or in part by National Science Centre, Poland, 2025/09/X/ST8/00294.\n\n*News from SolarAnywhere.*\n\n*Sign up for*\n\n[CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries](https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe), sign up for[our daily newsletter](https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/daily-newsletter), and[follow us on Google News](https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqLQgKIidDQklTRndnTWFoTUtFV05zWldGdWRHVmphRzVwWTJFdVkyOXRLQUFQAQ)!*Have a tip for CleanTechnica? 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See our policy*\n\n[here](https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-editorial-ethics/).[CleanTechnica's Comment Policy](https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-comment-policy/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solaranywhere-r-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight", "canonical_source": "https://cleantechnica.com/2026/08/10/solaranywhere-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight/", "published_at": "2026-08-10 22:59:21+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-10 23:10:28.732198+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["robotics", "autonomous-vehicles", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["SolarAnywhere", "Piotr Lichota", "Warsaw University of Technology", "National Science Centre, Poland"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solaranywhere-r-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solaranywhere-r-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solaranywhere-r-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solaranywhere-r-supports-solar-pv-unmanned-flight.jsonld"}}