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The US Army is Building Drones That Never Need To Land (technologyreview.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

It's using lasers to power the aerial machines. An anonymous reader writes: According to New Scientist [paywalled], the US Army is firing lasers at photovoltaic cells on drones to deliver power from a distance. Eventually they hope to power the devices from 500 meters away. How it works: The method is similar to the way University of Washington researchers are powering their mini insect robots. The process creates a lot of heat, which could risk melting the drone. And lasers come with additional risks.

5 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But what do they do? by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But what do they do?

    Provide jobs for defense contractors and pad the resume for whoever is running the project when they are up for their next promotion.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  2. Lasermotive did this already by XXongo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I should note that Lasermotive (now renamed "Powerlight Technologies") did that laser-powered-drone demonstration several years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    (home page: https://powerlighttech.com/ )

  3. Laugh all you want to... by kaizendojo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    .. but this is exactly how Skynet and the Matrix started. And neither of them worked out to well for us.

  4. Re:But what do they do? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Though I also wonder, what for, with this limited range.

    Static defense would be an obvious application. You have drones hover and circle your base 500 meters out to watch for approaching infiltrators.

    Another would be convoy defense. You mount the LPU (laser power unit) on the top of a vehicle and have drones to your front and flanks to watch for ambushes, or soil disturbance that could be mines.

    They could provide low cost over-the-horizon views to armor, allowing tanks to avoid bounding overwatch, and move much faster. In defense, tanks could remain in full defilade while the crews watch the video feed from the drone rather than exposing their cupolas.

  5. Re:But what do they do? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3

    If the drone never lands how do you re-arm them?

    They carry cameras, not weapons.

    And reconnaissance drones already have extended time on target capabilities.

    Big high altitude recon drones are too expensive to assign one to every outpost, convoy, or patrol.

    Every time one crashes some neo-barb gets access to the technology.

    The tech is already available on-line to anyone with a credit card: dji.com

    For drone tech, the military is trailing the COTS/hobby market.

    COTS= Commercial off the shelf (an ERMA)

    ERMA= Easily recognizable military acronym