Tethered UAV applications require a power source on the ground and a tether to distribute the power to the drone. Continuously increasing power demand in the aircraft places much higher demands on the tether design itself. As power consumption in the aircraft increases, power losses in the tether increase nonlinearly and become difficult to manage. Tether losses can be minimized by increasing the size of the wire, but there is a limit. A better approach is to match the Ground Based Source “GBS” architecture with a power converter in the aircraft. Similar to the electrical power grid, Vicor GBS systems transform up the distributed voltage through the tether to matched converters in the aircraft. With increasing distributed voltage, the distributed current can be minimized, and tether design becomes manageable.
Engineers who want to discover new techniques using real-world applications to develop system architecture and select power components to fulfill conversion needs.
President, Vicor Power Systems
Since 1995, Bill Schmitz has been President of Vicor Power Systems. He works closely with customers, overseeing the design, testing, and manufacture of custom power designs. Prior to this, Bill worked as a sustaining engineering/design engineer designing custom discrete power supplies. Bill holds a BSEE from Gonzaga University and in his spare time he enjoys woodworking, automotive interests and outdoor activities in the Pacific Northwest.
