Laser Powered Paper Plane Takes Flight

RobertTaylor writes: "Ananova is reporting that Japanese scientists have developed a laser powered paper plane. A blast of light from a commercial laser heats up a droplet of acrylic polymer or water on its surface which acts as fuel. Full story here" Nature also has a story on this advance.

Comments

Interesting Technology

[shogun]

using the laser to power its direction by, for instance, blasting off parts of the wings.

Dont some airlines already do that though? Ie just dropping bits of its wings during flights. I wouldn't call it revolutionary, except in using a laser to do it rather than metal fatigue.

Something else like this.

[Galahad2]

I remember a while back reading about a laser powered metal disk that was going to possibly be an alternative to space travel. A laser on the ground would shoot at the center of the craft, which (being a mirror on the bottom) would reflect the light to the sides. The air would get so hot that it would "ignite" and force the craft up a few inches. The great thing about this is that the energy to get into orbit doesn't need to be carried by the craft, rather simply kept on land.

Here's a link to an article about it.

Re:Something else like this.

[Erotomek]

A laser on the ground would shoot at the center of the craft, which (being a mirror on the bottom) would reflect the light to the sides. The air would get so hot that it would "ignite" and force the craft up a few inches.

Why does it remind me that kind of travel method when in cartoons someone gets a pin in the ass which gives him perpetual energy and he goes up until he gets the pin out of his ass?

I think I've heard this one before.

[Saoshyant]

I'm pretty sure I've heard about using lasers to power spacecraft. The idea is that, rather than having spacecraft lug around a S%$tload of expensive fuel, keep the fuel back here on earth, and beam a laser at the craft. The craft harvests the energy in the laser, probably using photovoltaic cell technology. The beatiful part is that the craft will never outrun the power source.

Re:I think I've heard this one before.

[steveha]

rather than having spacecraft lug around a S%$tload of expensive fuel, keep the fuel back here on earth, and beam a laser at the craft.

Well... almost.

You can make an airplane that works this way: it sucks in cool air, a laser provides power to heat the air, the hot air jets out the back of the airplane engine and makes the plane go. The plane pushes itself along using air. We can call the air "reaction mass".

If you want to power a spacecraft with lasers, you need to do pretty much the same thing. However, in space you cannot suck in cool air, so you need to carry some other sort of reaction mass to jet out the back of the rocket. The laser provides energy to accelerate the reaction mass.

But the best, most practical application of lasers to transportation would be to make a vehicle that goes to space, using the airplane trick to get the vehicle started and then switching over at some point to more conventional rockets. As long as the laser is working and you can suck in cool air, you can jet out hot air and get some lift. This would mean your vehicle can carry less fuel and still reach orbit.

None of these will happen this year or next year.

steveha

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...fanatical Muslim zealots hijacked a paper plane fully fueled with five drops of water and crashed it into a scale-model skyscraper built out of playing cards... approximately 4 people received horribly disfiguring paper cuts in the ensuing collapse of the structure.

An army of rescue workers has descended on the scene and is engaged in what has been described as "52 pick-up, one thousand times over."

SEC officials are looking into massive short-selling of United States Playing Card Company and Hammermill stock in the two days prior to the incident.

Fuel... A nit to pick

[Embedded Geek]

...heats up a droplet of acrylic polymer or water on its surface which acts as fuel...

Actually, it's be reaction mass, not fuel. The water/polymer itself isn't releasing energy to propel the plane. The laser provides the energy to power a state change (liquid to gas) which pushes the sucker along.

I think the "fuel" (liquid cessium??) in an ion engine is the same way, providing reaction mass while the real energy is from the electrical source.

Yes

[wadetemp]

Can you really call it a "paper" plane if it's made out of aluminium foil?

Only if it's aluminum paper.

I developed one of these also.

[wadetemp]

I made a laser powered paper airplane once. Actually it was made out of aluminum, not paper. Well, actually one of those little foil gum wrappers, I'm not sure if it was aluminum or not. And I guess it wasn't really a laser, I guess it was my finger flicking it... but I was holding a laser pointer in the other hand and was guiding the plane to the target using it! (And then after I made a few of those and threw them into a big pile, I made a beowulf cluster out of them just for good measure.)

Raining Luggage.

[Soulslayer]

My Uncle used to design automated systems used for package and luggage sorting at various institutions. Often he was called in to observe and suggest solutions to previously installed systems. Here are some of the things he encountered in airport luggage handling systems:

1) A second terminal was added to a small airport and they needed to find a way to send bags to the correct terminal with minimal effort and cost. So a couple of maintainence staff scavenged a large piece of aircraft aluminum (essentially it was part of an airplane wing) and mounted it onto a swing arm so that it would divert luggage down one ramp or another as they approached.

In order to sort the luggage what they did was put a scanner ahead of the fork if a bag destined for a different terminal than the current path allowed headed down the ramp; the wing would swing to the other side of the conveyor.Well the problem was the staff had mistimed the gate. So a package would happily wander down the conveyor till it hit the sensor. The senor read the package's destination as the package continued along till about the time it came even with the tip of the wing being used a diverter. The wing would then finally move, late, crushing the bag against the far wall. When the next package came down destined for the now blocked path the wing would move freeing the first package (now headed down the wrong ramp) and crush the new package.

Changing the timing of the gate was a simple fix, but it was scary how long it had lasted before anyone bothered to get look into it.

2) Another example was at a modern large city airport. They had installed a super deluxe expensive baggage handling system with the usual barcode reading sorting machines to ensure luggage arrived at the correct gate.

My Uncle was called in to survey the problem that the airport was having(what the problem was they were being rather cagey about). When he arrived they lead him to the baggage sorting area where the system was currently turned off.

The airport rep handed my Uncle and his co-workers hardhats (never a good sign) and hit the start switch for the system. Klaxons and flashing lights then ensued. As the observers raised their eyebrows in question and concern, the first pieces of baggage started moving along on the upper wall conveyor heading for the gravity fed ramps to the individual gates.

As the baggage reached its designated gate a big push plate at the top of each ramp would shove the packages down the ramp. At first everything seems to be operating smoothly. But the force needed to propel a 50lb suitcase off a ledge and down a ramp is not the same as that needed for a 5lb vanity case. And in short order baggage was soaring through the air; sometimes clear passed the end of the baggage catches at the end of the ramps. Often bags tumbled even further off course.

Through all of this baggage handlers in hardhats are running across the open space of the sorting room in a crouched position trying not to get pummeled by ballistic luggage.

My Uncles company wrote up a proposal to fix the problem but the airport decided that it was too expensive and left the system as is. I never found out what airport it was, but my Uncle said that as of a few years ago the system was still operating the same way.

No wonder luggage gets destroyed or "lost" so frequently.

Same idea, but without the laser...

[fingal]

Many, many, moons ago I got a job working here while I was doing my A levels and one of the things that they where working on was propulsion systems for extremely high speed planes. If my memory serves me (which is not guaranteed cos I was only humble code monkey and not privee to the finer arts of engineering theory and it was a long time ago), then they where planning to use conventional propulsion methods up to their maximum effective threshold and then start spraying fuel onto the trailing edge of the wings directly, which due to the intense heat and pressure due to the (already quite unfeasibly high) speed would spontaneously ignite thereby generating more thrust without all the hassles of trying to force an extremely unpredictable fluid down a tube at high speed. Absolutely no idea of whether or not they made any progress on this or whether or not I would be prepared to fly in one if they did...