Limited flight duration is a considerable obstacle to the widespread application of micro aerial vehicles (MAVs)^1,2,3, especially for ultralightweight MAVs weighing less than 10 g, which, in general, have a flight endurance of no more than 10 min (refs. ^1,4). Sunlight power^5,6,7 is a potential alternative to improve the endurance of ultralight MAVs, but owing to the restricted payload capacity of the vehicle and low lift-to-power efficiency of traditional propulsion systems, previous studies have not achieved untethered sustained flight of MAVs fully powered by natural sunlight^8,9. Here, to address these challenges, we introduce the CoulombFly, an electrostatic flyer consisting of an electrostatic-driven propulsion system with a high lift-to-power efficiency of 30.7 g W⁻¹ and an ultralight kilovolt power system with a low power consumption of 0.568 W, to realize solar-powered sustained flight of an MAV under natural sunlight conditions (920 W m⁻²). The vehicle’s total mass is only 4.21 g, within 1/600 of the existing lightest sunlight-powered aerial vehicle⁶.

有限的飞行时间是微型飞行器（MAV）广泛应用的一个相当大的障碍^1,2,3 ，特别是重量小于10克的超轻型微型飞行器，其飞行时间一般不超过10分钟（参考文献^1,4 ）。阳光动力^5、6、7是提高超轻型MAV续航能力的潜在替代方案，但由于飞行器有效载荷能力有限以及传统推进系统的升力效率较低，之前的研究尚未实现无系留持续飞行完全由自然阳光驱动的 MAV ^8,9 。在这里，为了应对这些挑战，我们推出了CoulombFly，这是一种静电飞行器，由具有30.7 g W ^{- 1}高升力功率效率的静电驱动推进系统和低功耗的超轻千伏电源系统组成。 0.568 W，实现MAV在自然阳光条件下（920 W m ^{− 2} ）的太阳能持续飞行。该飞行器的总质量仅为4.21克，是现有最轻的太阳能飞行器⁶的1/600以内。