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DARPA intends to wirelessly charge drones while in flight by power-beaming
DARPA has committed further funding for far-field wireless power transfer – or power-beaming – to wirelessly charge drones in flight without them ever having to abandon mission to recharge or swap out dead batteries, potentially saving critical missions.
Dr. Ifana Mahbub, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at The University of Texas, had already received the Young Faculty Award from DARPA in 2021, giving her US$500,000 over two years for her project. Specifically to eliminate entirely the need for a drone to return to base (RTB) for a battery swap or to be charged, which can waste valuable time and resources, not to mention potentially being detrimental to the mission at hand. An MQ9-Reaper drone, while using a 950-shaft-horsepower (712-kW) turboprop engine in it's current configuration, could be a future-use candidate for being battery powered with the power-beaming technology Dr. Ifana Mahbub is developing
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