UAV Helicopter Flies 12 Hours Charged By Laser 83
garymortimer writes "LaserMotive (who last year won $900,000 in the NASA Power Beaming Challenge, one of the levels of the 'Space Elevator Games') have teamed up with Germany's Ascending Technologies to create an indoor flight record for electrically powered multicopters. The flight took place at the Future of Flight Aviation Center in Mukilteo, WA. LaserMotive is a Seattle-based company developing laser power beaming systems to transmit electricity without wires, for applications where wires are either cost prohibitive or physically impractical."
The ultimate weapon (Score:2, Funny)
Giant robots powered by laser via solar satellites. That's it folks, that's the next generation of military tech.
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You forgot about the shark, there has to be a shark involved for this to really work.
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You forgot about the shark, there has to be a shark involved for this to really work.
There's only a shark involved when it's been jumped.
Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....
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You forgot about the shark, there has to be a shark involved for this to really work.
There's only a shark involved when it's been jumped.
There will be plenty of sharks about after the first patent infringement suit gets filed.
Re:The unstoppable weapon (Score:5, Funny)
Okay... Now I'm involved, you happy?
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You need the robot to trash mirrored bunkers.
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I would assume using the laser as a weapon would classify it as a WMD.
weight (Score:2)
I'm not clear the significance of 12 hours. That's a far cry from "indefinitely" so I wonder if they just got tired of running the experiment or if
Re:weight (Score:4, Interesting)
All in a very tiny package. Fruit flies are even tinier...
So we've certainly got a long way to go in terms of technology.
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And you need to control what they think.
Spoken like a true government representative.
Re:weight (Score:4, Informative)
Now, for $30 you can buy one that's much smaller, much lighter, yet much easier to fly (which is surprising since tiny craft are normally unstable). But the really small cheap ones fly for around 30 seconds. To fly for 12 hours isn't just a little better, it's a drastic improvement, about 100 times longer than even a hobby-quality helicopter.
That said, the FAA tends to frown on shooting powerful lasers into the sky for fear of blinding pilots. Perhaps they wouldn't worry about that in a warzone; then again usually all the aircraft above a warzone are our own.
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On that day, I for one will welcome our reproducing, self-fueling heli overlords.
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All true, but houseflies are very bad at following orders. On the positive side, if we weaponize horseflies, given the way they like flying around the hindquarters they would be ideal for taking out troublesome government officials.
Wireless Power? (Score:1)
Why can't this be used for wireless power in general? For example, beaming power to laptops, phones, and what-have-you...or Is it?
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Why can't this be used for wireless power in general? For example, beaming power to laptops, phones, and what-have-you...or Is it?
I wouldn't want to point those lasers at a person, particularly if it might hit somebody in the eye.
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In the world of industry, made by companies few of us know exist, there exist sensors and low power chips that are powered by light sent through optical fibers.
I know that's not the same thing as wireless, but I reckon for small devices, requiring small power, in environments incredibly hostile to wiring (fiber or wire), laser power+communication might be useful.
Because the laser would be all burninaty (Score:5, Informative)
The max safe amount for a consumer laser pointer is in the 5-10mW range. Above that, serious and rather immediate damage can result from looking at it. Up in the range of 500mW they are dangerous to the point that reflected light can cause immediate eye damage. So you don't even have to look at the beam, just a specular refraction and still can get hurt. Also, this starts to get in to the "can set shit on fire" level.
Now consider that a laptop power adapter is generally in the 50-100watt range. In terms of lasers that would be "CO2 laser that blasts through steel as though it were butter."
To power anything more than a very trivial device, you'd have an unsafe level of laser power. Also it would be even worse than it sounds, because of course the receiver won't be 100% efficient.
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It's not necessarily the most efficient solution, but where safety is concerned, it seems feasible on a basic level.
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So 20,000 lasers (5mW each to generate 100watts) to power a laptop? Somehow I don't see that as at all feasible. Remember, max level for Class 3R is 5mW and that is the limit for stuff that doesn't require protective eyewear, key interlocks and so on.
Lasers are dangerous, just how it goes.
Re:Because the laser would be all burninaty (Score:4, Informative)
Incidentally, this problem has been solved. Simply de-focus the beam at the sending end, and re-focus it at the receiver side (and do it with a diameter lens that nobody except godzilla has in their eyes - easy enough).
The goal is to spread, say 100W, in a beam that has a surface area of, say 10cm2. Since the aperture of the eye has a surface area of about 10mm2, the power delivered into the retina if someone were to glue their eyeballs to the transmitter would be 100W * 10cm2 / 10mm2 = 1W (and the eye will immediately respond by lowering that surface area to less than 1mm2, making the total delivered power less than 0.1W, and obviously, even with your retina glued to the transmitter you won't get anywhere near 10% efficiency).
Directly looking into the sun delivers about 2W to your retina (and will destroy it, but not immediately).
This is a big problem for the "solar panel in space" technologies. But it's not much of a problem really. If you were to send down 100 GW over a square kilometer, anyone could walk over the receiver perfectly safely without any protection. The power from the satellite would be a factor 1 million less than the solar irradiation (so you could send it quite safely over 10 square meters as well if needed).
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2) 5 mw =
3) 1W is 200x the limit for a "safe" laser beam, so you need at least 200x the surface area you listed
4) even
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Well I must admit I did the calculations rather quickly, but unless I'm radically wrong the sun's normal irradiation (that can't possibly be considered dangerous) is 1.3 kW/m2.
That means, I think, that when looking directly at the sun, at 14h noon, solar irradiation would create much more than 0.1W (about 0.2 actually). That may be uncomfortable, but we all get exposed 365 times a year.
For remote power that means that you could send 0.1W per 10 square millimeters safely. This means 100 kW per square meter.
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That's the whole point of using a lens to spread out the image maximally. This power source's energy would actually be better spread out on your retina than the image of the sun, thus less dangerous.
Mid IR is a very usable frequency, as the athmosphere mostly leaves it alone, so you could probably bridge rather large distances with it. Eye safety would be a great bonus.
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Will an eye really focus any collimated beam ? What if the lens' focal length is different ?
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Yes, but it will be "focused" on the entire back of the eye, not on a single spot, I hope ?
So that "focused" beam would have the same intensity on the retina as it has at the iris, no ? (or at least it would be related to aperture/retina size ratio, so unless I'm mistaken it would be weakened (as the retina is a lot bigger than the aperture, like in every camera that hopes to focus anything at all)
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Using your figure of 1.3 kW/m2 for insolation, I get 1.3 GW/km2, ie insolation is 1/100 of your proposed 100 GW/km2.
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Re:Because the laser would be all burninaty (Score:4, Informative)
500mW is not dangerous. 500mW in a very small area is dangerous. For a laptop, the power receiving area could be quite large. Sunlight is approximately 1kW/m^2. Given a laptop area of about 0.05m^2 and a power consumption of 50W (100W is really high for a laptop, you'll be hard pressed to find one that uses more than 65W under full load and still counts as portable), that means that you'd need about the same amount of energy as sunlight to power it, with full efficiency.
I didn't TRFA, but last time I checked laser power systems had a transmission loss of close to 98%, which makes them somewhat impractical for laptop use. I would like wireless power, but I wouldn't like it enough to pay the electricity bill from a 2.5kW laptop.
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Do you think that funny little dictator in North Korea could be suspended in air by lasers while he roasts like pig? Last night the Heat Magic basketball game seats at court side went for $25,000 per seat. I'll bet people would pay as much to watch that freak broil.
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You must be new here ("here" meaning the USA).
Our military contracting industry is in the business of getting more and more contracts to do useless things. They are not in the business of making useful weapons and the people paying them are not in the business of serving America's best interests.
If real private industry, or science, wanted laser-powered helicopters we'd build them at a fraction of the cost that the taxpayers are paying for this shit.
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More like Iraq and Afghanistan are not useful wars.
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More like Iraq and Afghanistan are not useful wars.
So, when's Baracky gonna end 'em like he promised?
Rome wasn't burnt in a day you know.
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THEY'RE POWERING SHIT WITH LASERS.
So...THEY CHARGIN' WIT' LAZ0RZ?
(Memes have to change with the times...)
Re:Kind of like NASA. (Score:4, Interesting)
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If real private industry, or science, wanted laser-powered helicopters we'd build them at a fraction of the cost that the taxpayers are paying for this shit.
You'd better tell Alan Turing that. He thought he was employed (and ultimately driven to suicide) by the government that paid him to do the early research that led to a lot of modern computing.
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You did not read the article then. Surprising, for a Slashdotter, I know.
If you had bothered to read the article, the Kingfisher LX-1 was designed for remote surveillance over the oceans. More impressively, power transfer is accomplished with the lasers attached to the heads of sharks. Now, if that is not an outside application, I don't know what it is........
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They couldn't get any sharks so they had to settle with ill-tempered mutated sea bass.
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Do not stare at helicopter with remaining eye. (Score:2)
n/t
laser powered rocket (Score:1)
This is illegal (Score:4, Funny)
How do military pilots protect themselves? (Score:2)
So if these laser pointers can do so much damage/destruction to pilots/planes ... does this mean that a bunch of terrorists with cheap lasers can wreak havoc . . . ? Or did we just let the cat out of the bag . . . ?
Any military/commercial pilots out there? Are there any protective measures . . . ?
Any asshole pointing a laser at an airplane, should be tossed into a pool full of sharks.
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You are using bureaucratic rule to limit the advancement of technology. You must work for the government.
No, he's not. Using technology to harm and potentially kill people will remain illegal no matter how advanced the technology gets. Those sort of rules don't limit technology itself, just how it is applied.
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Make up your mind already! (Score:2)
Sounds like the perfect defence for guys like this! [swrnn.com]
Clarification needed! (Score:4, Funny)
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I understand the concept behind this, but how do they keep the sharks pointed at the helicopter?
Look, chum.
I had to say it... (Score:2)
I'mma chargin' by LAAAASEEEEERS!
Just trun off disasters and it's 100% safe power! (Score:2)
Just trun off disasters and it's 100% safe power!
Heil Atlantis! (Score:1)
Compared to Microwaves (Score:2, Interesting)
Electric Rockets.... (Score:2)
Could make it easier to make a Single Stage to Orbit Ion-Plasma rocket. Just have a power plant on the surface and then one in orbit and when the rocket gets 1/2 way into space switch to the space based power source. Smaller more powerful rockets and cheaper access to space.