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UAV Hoisted Tower Powered By Laser Over Fiberoptic
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."
Copper weighs more than a fiber optic cable.
Atlanteans had this tech back in the 10,000 BCs except they didn't bother with a tether, they just beamed their maser (that's Microwave amplified...) energy through crystals seated on top of large pyramidal buildings. We're so 20,000 years ago.
Fiber is non conductive. If you are going to fly your little drone in a populated area, you don't have to worry about your tether contacting overhead power lines. A lot of cranes and hoists used to have fiber to the remote controls for that reason. (A lot of them are wireless now).
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Why not just use a balloon? The only advantage I can see this having is less movement due to wind, but designing a properly shaped balloon should easily defeat that, and more importantly a balloon would be much quieter at low altitudes, use much less power, and stay aloft even if the power is cut. Seems like a case of a hammer looking for a nail.
One of the advantages of this design over a lightweight copper power feed is that DATA is bidirectional over the same optic cable. Transmitting the surveillance data back to the ground is much more secure and at higher rates than through thin copper or over some RF transmitter on the copter. That is, this can be stealthier.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
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.
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?
I8-D