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FuturologyBot t1_j07sykc wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Aerothermal:


Northrop Grumman unveils their wireless power project 'Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research' (SSPIDR). It is being sold on its military applications for providing power to forward operating and contested areas, where warfighters need steady power to maintain mission operations. Consider the attacks on ground infrastructure in Ukraine, coupled with the force multiplier of UAVs, and the inherently short dwell time. Every problem is an opportunity to capitalize. Consider how powerful it would be to have mobile generators beaming power and keeping drones in the sky loitering potentially indefinitely. The Airbus Zephyr shown through solar power that it can be done, staying in the air for over 2 months at a time albeit with a huge wingspan and lots of solar cells.

This year Airbus demonstrated solar power beaming, with the idea of delivering concentrated power from space. Couple this with modern warfare developing 'teaming' or swarms of manned and unmanned vehicles and aircraft operating together.

The missile manufacturer MBDA unveiled a similar vision for the Future Combat Air System.

Lockheed Martin have been on it too for at least a decade, where they demonstrated laser power beaming to keep drones fully charged.

DARPA too have a similar project called Electric Sky which was in the media last year.

Startups are capitalizing on this emerging market too, such as the UK-based Space Power.

Then there's space exploration applications. NASA has ran several projects to develop visible light and laser power distribution, for UAVs, and for wireless charging for moon robots.

Medium/long range wireless power distribution is no longer sci-fi, it's starting to become serious business.


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