Texas A&M students develop heavy-lift drone with high payload capacity

Aerospace engineering students from Texas A&M University have developed a lightweight electric drone capable of carrying a 110-pound payload despite the aircraft weighing only approximately 50 pounds. The prototype successfully completed a four-nautical-mile flight in 12 minutes during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Lift Challenge held in Dayton, Ohio.

A key engineering innovation was the drone’s carbon-fiber frame, which weighs only six pounds without the battery. To minimize weight, the team utilized structural bonding instead of traditional nuts and bolts. The design features a central battery with eight arms extending to the motors and propellers, providing a distributed propulsion arrangement.

Managing battery weight was a primary constraint, as the power source accounted for more than half of the drone’s total mass. Unlike fuel-based aircraft, the battery weight remains constant throughout the flight, requiring the propulsion system and frame to be sized to lift the battery continuously while maintaining sufficient thrust for the payload.