Volcano versuspenguin . Crocodile versuselephant . Horse versusalligator . The natural world is full of struggle like this , but now it looks like humanity has move into the ruffle , pitting several of its metallic and plastic drones against the terrifying force of lightning . come out your bets now , ladies and gentlemen .
In the one street corner , we haveYouTuber Tom Scottand his two DJI Phantom 3 droning . These rather various levitators have survived plenty of extremely uncongenial environments before , let in active volcano – but this time , they may have finally met their match .
In the other box , we have the University of Manchester’sHigh Voltage Laboratory(HVL ) , with their supervillain - like impulse source . This somewhat magical equipment can generate up to 2 million volt of electrical energy at the drop cloth of a hat , but for the purposes of this battle , they kindly swap it down to a measly 1 million volts .
In round one , the pilotless aircraft was tethered in place to insure it could n’t creep out of the way of the lightning strikes . charge up their impulse generator , there was a queasy wait before the dash struck the pilotless aircraft – and , as you might expect , it fell out of the sky .
Ouch . FSE Digital Marketingvia YouTube
There were n’t part of it scattered all over the lieu , nor was there any kind of ardour , but Scott was capable to smell the fried circuits as soon as he went over to recall our fallen protection .
The barrage , when removed , appear to be dead intact . It ’s insulated , weirdly , because of a metal box incase it , which make it a type of Faraday cage . The motor , however , were whole fried .
Drones versus Lightning . Tom Scottvia YouTube
Humanity was n’t cease yet though . Deciding to send in his back up drone , Scott this time gave his drone a make - transmutation lightning rod , which he hoped would send the bolt of day of reckoning skreigh around the drone and not through it .
The lightning does n’t seem to have gone for the decoy , so to speak . rather , during round two , it exploded through one of the propellers , sending it flying through the air . Ah well . Such is thepower of nature .
Apart from being great fun to watch , these sorts of experiments do have an actual purpose .
“ One of the most pertinent interrogative we have had to serve in recent year is what occur to aeroplanes if they ’re struck by lightning , ” Enna Bartlett , a digital coordinator for the University of Manchester , noted in an accompanyingblog .
“ With our reason of how airplane behave in thunderstorms and how to allow for protection for them , this knowledge could be applied to drone technology to ensure the drone and its pilot remain safe should they vanish in contrary atmospheric condition condition . ”
