An idea that perhaps many of us dependent on batteries for our mobile lives as well as for using airsoft AEGs would like to look into and just dream that it can be made a reality. DARPA has approved funding for a private company that will develop the world’s first “Whisper Beam” transmitter for wirelessly powering in-flight UAVs (unhumanned aerial vehicles).

Just imagine that, if this technology works, why not have someone “whisper beam” to your AEG’s battery when you run out of juice in the middle of game rather walking back to the safe zone to get fresh batteries?

Electric Sky Inc., the company that will be developing this tech, announced in a press release about getting DARPA funding. According to the company past wireless power for UAVs used lasers or microwaves, which start strong but get weaker as they travel. Their Whisper Beam technology does the opposite, starting weak and getting stronger near the receiver.

Robert Millman, CEO of Electric Sky said, “Whisper Beam technology is the electromagnetic equivalent of a whispering gallery. In a whispering gallery a single listener across the room can hear the speaker but no one else can, not even people standing directly between the speaker and listener. The sound is too weak for them to hear.”  

With their tech, radio waves self-focus at the receiver, enabling the UAV to draw kilowatts of power in all weather. The waves are weak everywhere else, even directly between transmitter and UAV.

According to the Whisper-Beam inventor Jeff Greason, “It’s a myth that long-distance power transmission is impossible, it’s just never been economical. This new method reduces the cost of the ground transmitter and the size of the vehicle’s onboard receiver.”

Greason also added that he sees that any type of electric aircraft will be able to draw power in flight and that this tech will be helpful during take-off and climbing to higher altitudes which will require more power than when cruising at a constant speed. This will help extend their ranges, reduce peak loads on batteries, and even shorten ground turnaround times.

The company will be developing the tech for DARPA under DARPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, focusing on exploring adapting the new wireless architecture to power a swarm of UAVs. They will build and test a lab-bench demonstrator at short distances. These experiments will supply data needed to upgrade to higher power and longer distances and then adapt the transmitter to follow UAVs across the sky.  

With militaries already heavily depending on drones to do reconnaissance, defensive, and offensive tasks that are too dangerous for their personnel to do, they will have to invest more research in being able to power these to provide range and duration for a mission. Drone swarm technology is already on ascendant and being able to have them stay longer, swarm or individual drones, they will be able to help affect the situation in the field especially when the soldiers down below needed the drone to provide targeting information or hit targets that are deemed the most dangerous threats to them.

This tech is something that can be looked forward to that aside from military applications, “Whisper Beam” has a lot of  potential for civilian uses given that efforts to lessen dependence of fossil fuels to power vehicles and more on electric power. Being able to charge an aircraft in flight or a land vehicle in motion without any tethering will lessen travel times as well as help extend their ranges.

Top photo: An RQ-20 Puma UAV being in launched in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan in June 2012 (US Army/Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)