Wireless charging hotspots lets drones fly forever through in-air recharges

[African wildlife]

I agree on the question of hovering - it's not clear why it would not be better to land. More specifically it's not clear if there is some specific benefit to remaining airborne, since the charging system could, presumably, work just as well in either case.

I would assume that the Russian applied physicists are smart enough to have explored that option. But perhaps not, as some simple things do get missed by very clever people. Could this be a business opportunity for you here? Although my training was as a scientist, it wasn't physics so I'm of zero help on the specific technicalities. With The Birds to the rescue?

 

[sar104]

I would assume that the Russian applied physicists are smart enough to have explored that option. But perhaps not, as some simple things do get missed by very clever people. Could this be a business opportunity for you here? Although my training was as a scientist, it wasn't physics so I'm of zero help on the specific technicalities. With The Birds to the rescue?

I'm sure there is a reason - it just wasn't explained.

 

[With The Birds]

I agree on the question of hovering - it's not clear why it would not be better to land. More specifically it's not clear if there is some specific benefit to remaining airborne, since the charging system could, presumably, work just as well in either case.

Not clear why it’s a benefit? Good- it’s not just me. I’m struggling to see where this added complexity, cost and reduced efficiency might be justified and by what benefit. Precision landing on a pad containing an induction loop would have to give better coupling. If you go with the landing option a direct electrical connection would definitely be more efficient and a lot simpler.

 

[MackeyC34]

I saw this company demonstrate the technology at the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show. It is real although they did say that as a company and a technology they are just getting off the ground (no pun intended). The concept they discussed was having a grid of these charging stations that could be set up quickly in a perimeter fashion such that a UAS could fly a long mission without having to return to home base for fresh batteries (think forest fire monitoring for example). Whether you hover and charge or land and charge would be a matter of choice. As some have said, it is unlikely that this would be a viable folks like us at this end of the spectrum, it could well make its way to the mid and high end in an affordable fashion. After all - who ever thought we'd be able to charge our cell phones simply by putting them down on a plastic pad plugged into the wall?

 

[Pedro Castelani]

It might be planned as a charging tunnel... Imagine the drone flying through it and recharging. About cooling the batteries, it might have secondary ones which then charge the primary ones... However, I would be a bit more concerned with the motors and, also, with the compass. Imagine, if your drone can crash just because of a small magnetic interference, what would happen when it is inside a highly electricized coil.

 

[MackeyC34]

Regarding the influence on the compass I wish I had thought of that question to ask. Good point.

 

[Bad Andy]

I don't see why optical systems can't override GPS and compass once the bird is in proximity to the charging system.

I still think it's weird to have the bird hovering during charging though, and am having trouble grasping bank switching since that means the bird will be carrying lots of "excess" weight.

 

[Pedro Castelani]

The Compass can get wacky even though optical systems override the system. Maybe even the RC signal could be tampered with. The fact of having two power banks isn't new, there was a project for a passenger octocopter which used fuel to run a motor that charged some batteries, which later powered the electric motors. When the fuel ran out, you still had the batteries to rely on for some time. The weight probably doesn't matter that much, since it can recharge forever and the drone is a quite powerful one.

 

[Bad Andy]

I think I should have been more precise about my mention of "optical systems".

I'm not talking about the primitive stuff built into Phantoms et al for obstacle avoidance and stability. I'm talking about laser guidance, with diode lasers on the charging system and dedicated sensors on the birds. Lasers, like radio waves, can also carry encrypted data. So between sensors on the charging system, sensors on the birds, laser guidance and an encrypted comms channel , essentially tamper-proof guidance may be established. It's not that difficult - all the tech is already well established.

 

[Pedro Castelani]

Ok, now you made things clear... Anyways, many sensors could still be messed up with. What is quite surprising is that the magnetic interference does not do anything to the motors...

 

[Bad Andy]

I don't think an optical system like that presents so much of a concern about "being messed with".

Laser -based guidance systems haven't caused us much difficulty guiding missiles and bombs to their intended targets, and as far as I know they don't use encrypted comms.

We live on a big magnet. The math for field decay over distance is part of the answer to your concerns of interference with the motors, even when the difference is measured in cm, mm and fractions thereof, rather than miles. Charging systems like this also depend on resonance.