US Patent Issued to AeroVironment on March 24 for "Method of operating a high altitude long endurance aircraft for maximizing solar capture" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,587,130, issued on March 24, was assigned to AeroVironment Inc. (Arlington, Va.).

"Method of operating a high altitude long endurance aircraft for maximizing solar capture" was invented by Derek Lisoski (Simi Valley, Calif.) and Bart Dean Hibbs (Simi Valley, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems, devices, and methods including at least one flight control computer (FCC) associated with at least one UAV, where the at least one FCC is configured to: determine a direction of travel of the at least one UAV relative to the Sun; adjust a UAV airspeed to a first airspeed if the determined direction of travel is towards the Sun; and adju...