this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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189
China’s ‘land aircraft carrier’ charges flying drone with microwave beam (www.scmp.com)
submitted 17 hours ago by FTonsilStones@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
36 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[–] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 11 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

I have a 6 year old electric car that takes 40ish minutes to charge, now BYD has batteries that will go from 10% to 70% in 5-10 mins.

In a few years time these drones will be getting charged from a microwave stream of power from a solar array floating in the upper atmosphere.

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes but you are charging through a conductive cable. It's not even remotely the same as charging something with microwaves.

The power delivered decreases exponentially with distance. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "inverse square law".

Because you divide the effect and gain by 4pi(r^2) meaning your output is decreased by 75% every time you double the distance.

You're going to need ridiculously powerful hardware and an enormous amount of electricity to run it on any meaningful distance.

[–] Pyrodexter@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

A concentrated, collimated beam doesn't act like a point source. There's of course some amount of scattering and absorption loss due to atmospheric particles, but other than that a fully collimated wireless energy transmission doesn't lose intensity over distance. Kind of obvious, really, because "where would the energy go?".

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.world 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The decreased chargng time comes with a massive increase in charging power. The equivalent in ths scenario is to massvely increase the microwave power - which would likely cook the drone.

[–] Domino@quokk.au 9 points 10 hours ago

I prefer my drones cooked in an old fashioned oven, microwaves leave the middle too cold and the outside too hot.

[–] _druid@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 hours ago

Exactly, proof of concept was all the scientists needed to see.