Military Working On Laser Powered Drones

disco_tracy writes "Modern militaries depend on fuel. Nearly 80 percent of the supplies delivered to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan consist of fuel, and it's no surprise that those military convoys are frequently the targets of insurgents. In the last decade, 1000 soldiers have died delivering gasoline to military operations. A new approach using lasers could provide power to drones in flight or to machines on the ground and remove the need for gas deliveries to army bases."

Comments

so where does the laser power come from ?

[RichMan]

"remove the need for gas deliveries to army bases", so where does the laser power sent to the drones come from ?

Or are we going to aim big orbital lasers at the army bases? That sounds like a good idea.

Also a dispersive light beam as described is not going to be efficient. R^2 losses on defocusing and all that. So more power needed at the base to send up to the drones.