Kent, Wash.-based PowerLight Technologies says its laser power beaming system has been used successfully to keep a military-grade, fixed-wing drone in the air for hours during a series of tests for the Department of Defense.
The flight demonstrations concluded this month at the Poinsett Electronic Combat Range at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. The tests were conducted in partnership with Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, sponsored by U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon’s Operational Energy – Innovation Directorate.
PowerLight’s system was installed on a KHA K1000ULE drone, which operates under a recently awarded $270 million deployment contract from the AFCENT Battle Lab. The flight tests demonstrated end-to-end operation of a kilowatt-class wireless power system, from target acquisition and precision tracking through beam delivery and safety management.
During the tests, the beaming system acquired and tracked the drone at altitudes up to 5,000 feet, delivering power while steering and focusing the infrared laser beam in real time.
PowerLight, formerly known as LaserMotive, started out more than 15 years ago with power-beaming systems capable of keeping small quadcopters in the air continuously. The latest tests marked the first demonstration of a wireless system capable of sustained, autonomous power delivery at operationally relevant ranges and power levels for a large, fixed-wing military drone.
Currently, such drones must land to refuel or recharge once their onboard power source is depleted. Continuous wireless power could theoretically keep them airborne indefinitely.
PowerLight’s system was developed through the Power Transmitted Over Laser to Uncrewed Aircraft Systems program, or PTROL-UAS, sponsored in part by U.S. Central Command.
“The Poinsett Range demos prove what we built, and set the stage for the roadmap for this capability that scales from a single transmitter to a distributed network, increasing power output, altitude and range, sustaining multiple aircraft simultaneously across a theater,” PowerLight Technologies CEO Tim Jenks said today in a news release.
Jenks pointed out that PowerLight’s technology could also be used to counter enemy drones. “The same autonomous targeting, precision beam control and real-time system intelligence that keeps a friendly platform aloft has direct applicability to directed-energy counter-UAS strategies,” he said.
In addition to its work for the Department of Defense, PowerLight has worked on systems that could transmit power to 5G base stations, underwater robotic vehicles and lunar rovers.
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