Scientists in China have demonstrated a wireless power transmission system that uses a ground-based microwave emitter to beam energy to an antenna array mounted on the aircraft’s underside. Importantly, they were able to do this while both the drone and charging system were in motion.
In tests, the car-mounted system kept fixed-wing drones in the air for up to 3.1 hours at an altitude of 15 metres (49 feet). The key challenge that the team overcame was maintaining alignment between the emitter and the drone during flight, wrote Song Liwei, the project’s leader.
Holy shit.
Getting the ability to remote charge things via microwave… that are moving?
That’s been basically sci fi nonsense, at a practical level, for a long time.
Anybody remember the Microwave Power stations in SimCity 2000?
If you could actually get this tech working, it has an incredible number of potential applications.
Uh…they actually got this tech working.
Will the US get this tech working? Can’t get anything working after slashing all research and kicking 10,000 phds out of the country.
Cletus and his Ram 1500 is not going to figure this out.
We’ve known about the possibility of doing this for decades.
The NRL did a practical test of it in 2022 iirc.