Wireless Tech Company Finds Way To Charge Drones In Flight 66
Global Energy Transmission (GET) co-founder William Kallamn says his wireless tech company has found a way to create a "power cloud" that can charge a drone while it's in flight. "The system comprises a ground-based power station with a frame of wires positioned in a roughly circular shape," reports Futurism. "When turned on, this creates an electromagnetic field in the air near the station. A drone equipped with a special antennae charges by flying into the range of the power cloud." From the report: Eight minutes of charge time translates to 30 minutes of flight. One of GET's power stations and two customized drones, each capable of carrying 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds), currently costs $120,000. It's hard to overstate the potential for drones to change our world, but for seemingly every positive use for the machines (package delivery, search and rescue operations), there's a negative one to consider (military weaponry, citizen surveillance). So, sure, a drone that never needs to land would be amazingly beneficial for moviemaking and sports coverage -- two uses Kallman notes in [an interview with entertainment vlogger David Fordham] -- but it's hard to imagine military or government officials wouldn't be highly interested in GET's drone charging tech as well.
The Tesla power tower (Score:1, Informative)
A hundred and eighteen years before its time.
Pics are impressive. (Score:1)
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Don't hold your breath. This probably has some troubling interactions with RF.
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Don't hold your breath. This probably has some troubling interactions with RF.
Pretty much this. There are some big issues with efficiencies - near field and far field RF physics has not been invalidated that I know of. The amount of power that is needed to flood a narrow field with enough joules of energy to charge at a rate that allows 30 minutes of flying time with 8 minutes of charge time is about as impressive a feat as I can imagine.
To the point that Ima calling provisional bullshit. This sounds the same level of believability as the devices that magically condense incredible
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A hundred and eighteen years before its time.
We still don't have those, because they don't allow you to limit the charging volume to a small area which you can ensure nobody is stealing power from you in.
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no, we don't have them because they're incredibly inefficient transfers of energy
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Nonsense. The problem with these technologies is getting enough range, not people a large distance away stealing your watts
With resonant technologies, if you're roughly 3 times the diameter of the coils away, then the power you can receive is largely negligible fraction of the transmission power, and it only goes down from there. With beamed technologies, they actually have to point a beam at you.
In either case, with sensible positioning of the equipment, it's a non issue.
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The issue is entirely due to the fact you can't monetize such formats of power distribution.
Time efficiency (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Time efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
A fully autonomous drone could land and recharge at a ground station for a heck of a lot less than $120,000.
Re:Time efficiency (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. A $5 inductive charger would do it.
And ... why would you hover when charging? That's wasted power (8 minutes of flight time)
Nothing about this passes the sniff test.
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Exactly. If you have to "go home" anyways, might as well "set for a spell and take a load off".
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(don't have to dock exactly to a charging port)
Have your use a modern drone? I have a DJI Mavic. Landing within an inch is easy even for a human.
... and caused less wear and tear on the landing struts, etc.
Is this supposed to be sarcasm? Or are you actually serious? 8 minutes of hovering will cause more wear on parts that actually matter.
I would probably be interested in $120,000 wireless charging solution.
You may want to apply to be a financial analyst for DoD. They would love you.
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If I had a fleet of commercial (and expensive) drones buzzing around making me money and the wireless charging made programming easier (don't have to dock exactly to a charging port) and caused less wear and tear on the landing struts, etc., then I would probably be interested in $120,000 wireless charging solution.
I'd be really interested in perpetual energy too.
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Exactly.
They are being obtuse about the charging distance too. The best spec I can find is "dozens of meters" [getcorp.com] on their site. The specification page [getcorp.com] indicates very little (despite being the obvious place to put a charging distance spec) but it does say the "Charge Spot Diameter" is "up to 8 meters". So, assuming dozens is 2 dozen, the device needs to hover within about a 25 ft diameter region up to 80 ft or so up. That isn't even always above treetop level.
In addition, the flight time carrying a load is only
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Damn you contry's getting paranoid. That fear is going to cost you way more than illegal immigration does.
Personally, I don't think the USA should be so paranoid over illegals. But considering the government is actually shut down at the moment over the issue of border security, it's really no stretch to imagine a border patrolled by a fleet of drones.
As a side note, what crack smoking moderator decided my post was "flamebait"? Pointing out that good ol' Uncle Sam would love to use this technology for border security isn't flamebait, it's the logical progression of the path we're already on [digitaltrends.com].
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It's flamebait because we don't need your shit us politics in every thread
I realize the reading comprehension level has been dropping on this site, but this wasn't an attempt to shoehorn politics into an irrelevant discussion. Border patrol already uses drones, and the number of drone flights has been increasing [gizmodo.com].
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it's really no stretch to imagine a border patrolled by a fleet of drones.
Being patrolled by drones seems like it would be more effective than a wall anyway ($120,000 wireless charging notwithstanding). Unless you have people monitoring every part of the wall, it's pretty easy to overcome with a ladder (people have been doing this since castle walls were invented, which is why they also had people manning the walls), a shovel, or a saw (apparently the prototype "walls" they're testing can be pretty easily cut through).
Of course, just having fixed towers / poles with cameras moun
Recharge While Hovering (Score:4, Interesting)
Shouldn't the inverse square law mean that the further the drone is from the power station, the slower it'd charge? The '8 minutes of charging for 30 minutes of airtime' depends completely on battery tech, weight of the drone, and how far it is off the ground. I suspect that recharging faster than it discharges requires the drone to hover a few feet over the power station, in which case it'd be faster to land and plug in. This would hardly enable it to remain high up in the air while recharging at a significant rate. Using beamforming to zap it with microwaves might be more effective.
Re:Recharge While Hovering (Score:5, Interesting)
It's even better, the further it is away the lower the efficiency of the charger. The guy basically built a way to piss power into the wind and sometimes top off the batteries of his drone.
Mr. Tesla! (Score:2)
To paraphrase South Park... (Score:3)
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Can't find it now, but I've seen a video (not animation) of this idea in action using a drone plane. It would fly to the wire and sort of stall over it so that it would fall backwards and a hook near the front bottom would snag the wire. After charging, it would then fly straight up to get off of the wire.
I think it would be cool if someone were to release drones like this "to the wild" that just flew around following power lines, charging when necessary, taking random
Just let's hope (Score:3)
EMF (Score:2)
The Quiet Earth (Score:2)
Wireless power grid? Great idea.
What could possible go wrong with that .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Earth_(film) [wikipedia.org]
Seriously? (Score:1)
The military will not be interested (Score:2)
Militaries will not be interested. What's the point if your drone has to return to a base station? The US military is already experimenting with laser charged drones, where they can beam power out kilometres to charge the thing without interrupting its spying/unexpected death from the skies thing.
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The military already has a system where a drone can charge by hovering near a high-tension line. I'm not aware of any military program to develop a line-of-sight laser charging method like you describe.
I'd be interested in links to either tech.
This is old tech! (Score:1)
Descent has been doing this since 1995.
Hunter-killer bots (Score:2)
Read between the lines and this is not about hobby drones, it is about autonomous hunter-killer and 24/7 surveillance drones. True black ops autonomy means never having to be serviced by a human. No humans involved, nobody to interfere or screw things up. These things could be launched once and then never return, and operate invisibly for a decade charging themselves autonomously any time they need to.