3 ms·

You are missing the point… 1.6kw is enough to power a drone for example. If the receiver is compact enough and light enough then this for examples allows you

You are missing the point… 1.6kw is enough to power a drone for example. If the receiver is compact enough and light enough then this for examples allows you to have a drone orbiting a surface warship pretty much indefinitely. Just so you know there is far greater loss of power in extracting oil, transporting it, refining it and then transporting the refined fuel to its destination. But it’s still better than not bothering with all of that just because the fuel allows you to power up thing that otherwise you won’t be able to do so.

saargrin 5y ago
a warship could (and some do) have baloons for that already though, and there are also drones that can be fed power through tether but if you could put a serious loitering drone over a section of urban terrain in a conflict zone or in high crime area, that could move around to get angles as required, that would be cool
uuyi 5y ago
I don't think I'm the one missing the point. Drones are usually required to have a low radar surface and loiter far from any associated targets. The launch and landing points need to be masked. Can anyone realistically throw 100kW out to power a <2kW drone with a 1km range without basically sticking a big electronic sign on the transmitter saying where to send the bombs? With some of the wideband phased array sensors out there now you can probably use the incident reflections off the drone to track the location of it as well. It's just a monumentally stupid idea end to end.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Drones are useful for observation, search and rescue as well as defense/offense if they are say kamikaze drones. Surface vessels already are lit like a pulsar due to their radar… Civilian marine radars can easily reach upto 25kw. The AN/SPY-1 which is the radar of the Aegis Combat System has a power output of 6MW….
  - uuyi 5y ago
    Those radar are pulsed not continuous power. It’s far more difficult to locate pulsed sources hence things like burst encoding.
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      It pulses multiple times a second and even tho in search mode it’s average power is 1-2% in tracking mode it can be as much as 50%. It still lights you up like an xmas tree. You also assume that the power delivery will be continuous instead of essentially just being used for charging a small UAV. Every modern system we have is usually completely inefficient but the price of that efficiency allows you to do other things. Our food production is extremely energy inefficient but it frees up the majority of the population to do other things, it improves sanitation in cities by pushing animal husbandry further out and it allows most of us to enjoy a wide selection of foods that taste good which has enormous societal benefits. The fact that something is inefficient doesn’t make it useless or ineffective. Heck sail ships are also far more energy efficient than airplanes but we kinda benefit greatly from being able to take off and land at any point on the planet within 24 hours or less.

saargrin 5y ago

a warship could (and some do) have baloons for that already though, and there are also drones that can be fed power through tether but if you could put a serious loitering drone over a section of urban terrain in a conflict zone or in high crime area, that could move around to get angles as required, that would be cool

uuyi 5y ago

I don't think I'm the one missing the point. Drones are usually required to have a low radar surface and loiter far from any associated targets. The launch and landing points need to be masked. Can anyone realistically throw 100kW out to power a <2kW drone with a 1km range without basically sticking a big electronic sign on the transmitter saying where to send the bombs? With some of the wideband phased array sensors out there now you can probably use the incident reflections off the drone to track the location of it as well. It's just a monumentally stupid idea end to end.

dogma1138 5y ago
Drones are useful for observation, search and rescue as well as defense/offense if they are say kamikaze drones. Surface vessels already are lit like a pulsar due to their radar… Civilian marine radars can easily reach upto 25kw. The AN/SPY-1 which is the radar of the Aegis Combat System has a power output of 6MW….
- uuyi 5y ago
  Those radar are pulsed not continuous power. It’s far more difficult to locate pulsed sources hence things like burst encoding.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    It pulses multiple times a second and even tho in search mode it’s average power is 1-2% in tracking mode it can be as much as 50%. It still lights you up like an xmas tree. You also assume that the power delivery will be continuous instead of essentially just being used for charging a small UAV. Every modern system we have is usually completely inefficient but the price of that efficiency allows you to do other things. Our food production is extremely energy inefficient but it frees up the majority of the population to do other things, it improves sanitation in cities by pushing animal husbandry further out and it allows most of us to enjoy a wide selection of foods that taste good which has enormous societal benefits. The fact that something is inefficient doesn’t make it useless or ineffective. Heck sail ships are also far more energy efficient than airplanes but we kinda benefit greatly from being able to take off and land at any point on the planet within 24 hours or less.