The US Drone Racing League has set the Guinness World Record for fastest drone in the world, or the category of “fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter.”
Called the DRL Racer X, the drone can fly at a top speed of 288km/h, according the Guiness World Records website.
The test was done in a field outside of New York City – with an official Guinness World Records adjudicator on hand to verify the speed.
The drone was clocked flying back and forth across a 100 meter long field – with the official record being the average of the top speed from each trial. So the official world record ended up being 262km/h.
There was no prior record for a drone, but Guinness mandated that the minimum speed requirement would need to be 205 km/h in order to be included in the record book.
The prototype RacerX is built on the same core platform as the Racer3, which is used in drone racing around the world. With the RacerX now fully tested, in near future drone racing could burst beyond 200 km/h if companies make commercial versions of the test drone. But for now, the prototype drone (which has propellers that spin at 46,000 RPMs) was built to break the record and show off the future potential of DRL drones.
Case in point – during one of the trials a prototype RacerX set on fire while hitting the highest point of acceleration due to too much power being applied to the motors.
Drone racing is becoming increasingly popular around the globe, with Britain’s Sky television offering $20 million investment in the sport.
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