The U.S. military will increase the use of drones that will reduce the number of human pilots when entering high -risk areas. Like electric vehicles, the use of electric drones will also be increased in the military. So in preparation, DARPA announced a project of developing a charging system for the drone while it was still flying in the air.
The Airborne Energy Well project called for the design of an electric drone charging system to be developed for existing refueling aircraft. A laser-based charging system of at least 100kW should have the ability to charge the drone wirelessly replacing the current oil pipeline system. DARPA believes energy transfer using lasers can be done safely.
The project is still in its early stages with interested companies having to showcase their designs before the end of next month before the selection will be made.
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