Autonomous Airborne Wind Power

On May 9th, 2013, the Makani team conducted the first fully autonomous flight of an airborne wind generation system. The following video illustrates this landmark turnkey flight (launch, hover, power generation, hover, land) with footage compiled from several recent tests. For an unedited view of the entire flight sped up 5x, see: Makani’s Airborne Wind Turbine is a tethered wing that generates power by flying in large circles where the wind is stronger and more consistent. It