UAV Hoisted Tower Powered By Laser Over Fiberoptic 103
carstene writes "LaserMotive, winners of the 2009 NASA power beaming contest, has a new invention, a virtual comm or surveillance tower. It's a quadcotper that can run indefinitely, powered by laser beam over a fiber optic cable. This allows the "tower" to reach great heights and avoids most laser safety issues."
Re:makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
Re:makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Old idea, commercially available now (Score:1, Informative)
Main advantage of fiberoptic is two fold, first it is lighter then copper per unit of energy you can push through it. Second it is has no electrical resistance, so you don't get a huge voltage drop over long distances. What this means is you can have more payload at greater height then with a copper based electrical solution.
Re:Old idea, commercially available now (Score:3, Informative)
Yup totally serious. Not plan old comm fiber optic, but consider how a laser welding machine pumps kilowatts though a correctly spec'ed fiber optic cable.
Remote safety, stability, and covert. (Score:4, Informative)
Because a balloon, at best, is filled with Hydrogen, and doesn't carry a lot of weight. This is for surveillance, possibly covert. Flying a giant balloon from a ground station in a forest outside a Colombian drug lord hideout wouldn't be the wisest move.
A copter on the other hand can be small, nearly silent, and left heavier equipment without nearly the visual footprint. It can also be rapidly deployed and returned for "quick looks". It can be taken to an exact height and location, not blowing around, and would not need tanks of gas brought around with it... A laser hooked up to a generator would eventually be safer and more portable and reusable in a battle or disaster.
It would also be much easier to remote control, turn the camera. What use is a balloon at say, a nuclear disaster zone like Japan, if the camera isn't stable enough to actually zoom in remotely without making the operator throw up?