Darpa's new requirement, wireless power.

Darpa has contracted Raytheon to design and develop a wireless aerial relay system to deliver power in contested environments, the project is part of its Energy web dominance program, in which Darpa wants to be able to provide power to anything virtually anywhere. place.

Under a 2-year contract valued at US$10 million Raytheon will create a wireless power system using a series of high-altitude unmanned aircraft equipped with laser-based power reception and transmission capabilities.

The energy will be transmitted to high altitudes and then retransmitted over as many hops as necessary to reach the target area which may be on the ground or may be another autonomous aerial platform, in which case it can remain in the air for as long as necessary with the batteries being constantly recharged from a distance.

With a sufficient number of these energy transmitting aircraft in the air, the Power system creates an energy network that military logisticians can use and direct electricity where it is needed most at any time, it is a supply line in the sky, capable of provide indefinite resistance to ground, air or sea robots or send the same energy to another location if strategically necessary, according to information released by the United States defense agency known as Darpa.

But there is a disadvantage to this system and in this case it is the fact that a good amount of energy is wasted to obtain this flexibility, it is estimated that there is perhaps around 20% loss when converting electricity into light for the laser and about another 50% more to convert the laser back into electricity at the receiver, and in this type of Relay Station setup that energy would be lost every step of the way.

The justification of those involved in the project for all this waste is the fact that much more energy is spent transporting fuel from refineries to tankers according to Raytheon and this type of aerial supply line would eliminate the personal risk normally associated with the transporting energy in a war zone, they will be preparing for something and are actually doing what they always do.