DARPA wants to refuel drones in flight – wirelessly

US military researchers are trying to turn in-flight refueling tankers into laser-shooting "airborne energy wells" for charging drones, and they want the public's help to figure out how. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) published a request for information (RFI) from anyone willing and able to contribute …

[eswan]

Already seen this movie

LASLO

Maybe somebody already has a use for it, one for which it's perfectly designed.

JORDAN

You mean Atherton had something in mind all along?

LASLO

Look at the facts: very high power, portable, limited firing time, unlimited range. All you'd need is a big spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Already seen this movie

All you'd need is a big spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.

And we'd have got away with it if not for you pesky kids atmospheric molecules.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: Already seen this movie

No, no, no. What is needed is 10,000 football programmes with shiny covers.

[Flocke Kroes]

Federal Acquisition Regulation hurdles.

Specific requirements plus a tight deadline. To me this smells like a company already has these components ready and someone with a budget at DARPA has decided to fund them but needs to jump through the appropriate FAR hoops.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Federal Acquisition Regulation hurdles.

jump through the appropriate FAR hoops.

Would those hoops be...

the Federal Acquisition Regulation Tests?

[Peter2]

Those two combine for DARPA's third requirement, that all the bits needed to build its airborne power zapper be at least at a tech readiness level of 6 or higher, meaning the components have been demonstrated successfully in a relevant environment.

Which means that somebody already has the hardware and offered it as a potential solution, but DARPA can't just give that company the contract without doing a public tender?

[Anonymous Coward]

somebody already has the hardware?

Well, that, or appropriate hardware seems to exist, but only from a collection of disparate suppliers, and so they want someone to integrate it into a purpose-built device...

[trevorde]

Next project

Fitting those lasers to sharks

[ITS Retired]

How much if that 100kW gets lost in the conversion? And if they miss the target area and hit a few sensors on the drone?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off[charge the bloody thing]

[ThatOne]

Yippee! Roast birds fall from the sky!

(Next step: Rain beer.)

[Anonymous Coward]

What did Santa ever do to you and why do you want to shoot lasers at Dasher, Prancer, Rudolph etc?

[ThatOne]

Yikes! Rain beer, not deer!

I wouldn't step out of my door if there was a chance of 400 lb beasts falling out of the sky, roasted or not.

[brainwrong]

remote power my arse

So they already have "new and emerging UAS that possess the ability to receive directed laser energy" according to the RFI. If that were the case then you'd expect them to specify what wavelength range they're looking for, but they don't. It just asks for a big-ass laser. Of 100kW, which conveniently is the minimum power expected to be usable as a weapon.

I think they'd like to beam energy at other people's drones so as to help them travel quickly to the ground.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: remote power my arse

May be dual mode.

Set phasorlaser on stuncharge

[Joe W]

Re: remote power my arse

and (at least waaay back when I was still at university) 100kW CW is a lot, doubly so if you want to drag the equipment around on an airplane. Some boffins were playing with LASERs in the PW range, but those were pulsed (and short single pulses those were, plus it took quite some time to recharge the caps or whatever).

I still find this interesting, from an engineering point of view, and definitely not because I need one of those on top of an evil-mastermind-lair on an seemingly uninhabited island[*].

[*]I always find thin intriguing, the Evil Mastermind has seemingly unlimited funds to build a superweapon, the super modern lair was built inside a vulcano on an island, lots of henchmen (who require regular pay, I guess), and still they seem to be quite short on money. Did the mafia lend them the money for the lair on extortionist terms? Are they funded like a tech startup through some Evil-Hedgefond-Managing scheme and was that a tautology? Wasn't there some fundraising scene in a Bond movie? The one with the attac on Fort Knox, I believe.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: remote power my arse

Does Mark Zuckerberg qualify as a Bond villain?

Volcanic Island. Check

Stangle hold on customers. Check.

Henchmen and women*.Check.

Money raised...

*Clegg, Sandberg

[Securitymoose]

The should have asked Nikola Tesla

He knew how to do this 100 years ago, but nobody listened.

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: The should have asked Nikola Tesla

He apparently knew how to wirelessly transmit electrical charge over long distances. Apparently. Any details he had died with him.

I fear you may have missed the subtle point about specifically using (frikkin') lasers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The should have asked Nikola Tesla

I fear you may have missed the point that Tesla was off his rocker n his later years and is the darling of every conspiracy crackpot who thinks over unity, zero point free energy is being suppressed by guvmint.

[osxtra]

First Thing First

To accomplish this, DARPA first needs another piece of technology: Time Travel. Given that, they could bring back Nikola Tesla and let him resume his research. He'd figure it out.

Contrary to a previous comment, Mr. Tesla did not know "how to do this" 100 years ago. But he sure was working on it. Had he not been screwed by Marconi, who knows what else the man may have ended up accomplishing.

(It is funny though, how we're coming back to the idea of direct current. Turns out both he and Edison were correct. In the house, DC is ultimately the way to go. But, how do you get all that juice *to* the house? Thus, the need for transmission without wires, or alternating current, as you prefer.)

His issue with wireless transmission of electricity was the same any modern inventor will face: determining how to handle ground. During his lightning experiments in Colorado, horses 30 miles away would spontaneously jump into the air as Tesla conducted his experiments. Shocking! ;)

True though, if anyone could figure this out, it'd be Tesla (the man, not the company). Wireless transmission of electriticy would mean no need for power lines cluttering up the streets, and no need for earth-bound generating plants (just capture the sun at the top of the space elevators encircling the equator, then beam it from the exterior of the elevator shafts some miles above ground).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: First Thing First

Oh please, do explain how you transmit DC current wirelessly without first converting it to an AC signal?

Extra conspiratard points if you mention zenneck waves

Actually, don't bother, you'll just spew a torrent of bullshit.

[WONKY KLERKY]

I say chaps (etc),

To my untutored brain cell:

0: Getting under/over and close with the drone to be refueled is fraught with difficulties.

For laser transference probs, see 1 below.

1: Ye boom method of energy transference is prob' best for present as 'little misses' with lasers can lead to big whoopsies.

2: Speed matching and turbulence 'wash' is the villain of the peace.

3: Ye drones come in basically x2 flavours ( / flavors if you're colonial ) + sub-flavour smaller versions of A below, viz:

Planing + Hovering.

A.0: Big Bugger like small fighter size - Usually IC engine of some type within.

Way Forward:

Bring to stage where able to look after itself and take on fuel (leccy or liquid) from tanker boom.

+

A.1: Smaller bugger version of above.

Way Forward:

Pref' as/above.

If they can't be brought forward (thought most prob' the case) because of speed + stability issues when maintaining station behind Big Hairy Bottomed Tanker (BHBT) then . . ......

How's about small slave tankers launched from BHBT's or in-flight docking to BHBTs?

+

B.0: Leccy + IC driven smallish buggers which have multi props and are essentially helicopter / hovering thingys by nature.

ie. No way can be refueled by boom from BHBT due to lack speed matching ability and inability to cope with BHBT wash.

Way Forward:

Small slave tankers - as/above.

Do hope I've not got too technical for you ( / y'all for the colonials).

[WONKY KLERKY]

In furtherance to my last and in support of my bid for the next Poet Laureates post:

I shot my laser in the air,

It went through f***k knows wot,

I know not where.