.jpg)
Dmitry Kalinovsky / Shutterstock
Drones are big business, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), there are currently almost 1.3 million drones registered in the US, with over 116,000 people registered as drone operators.
Drones and their Multitude of Applications
The main reason for the boom in drone use in the US and the world is due to the multitude of applications it has, applications which have relevance across almost all industries. Currently, drones are being put to work monitoring traffic and delivering packages; they are helping support our infrastructure by inspecting bridges, tracks, and power lines.
Unmanned crafts are also being put to use in situations that would pose a risk to pilots, such as assessing wildfires. The list is already impressive, and drones have not even reached their full potential. It is predicted that the near future will see them being used to transform industries such as construction and retail by delivering heavy cargoes to locations with difficult access. Further into the future, but still predicted to be within a decade, we could potentially even see drones being used as a green option for transportation.
However, in order for drones to fulfill their potential, innovation is needed to improve how they access a power source. Currently, drones use batteries, which need to be charged periodically, meaning drones need to be grounded frequently. In addition, it means that the drones are wasting energy carrying around weighty batteries. The other option is to tether them directly to the grid, but this drastically restricts their movement.
New Technology May Revolutionize Drone Flight
A Swiss company has come up with a solution which has the potential to revolutionize drone flight. LakeDiamond has established a method of recharging drones while in flight by shooting lasers through diamonds. The idea was born out of the challenge to innovate a way to recharge drones without having to land them. Lasers were an obvious answer, but there were problems to overcome. The quality of the laser beam, for example, diminishes with distance and can be obscured by rain, smoke, and fog. To ensure their consistent and strong beam, the Swiss team developed its own diamond to maintain the beam’s quality.
LakeDiamond created an artificial diamond which is purer than a natural diamond, created by layering carbon atoms into a crystalline pattern, resulting in producing a mirrored effect that is able to determine the laser beam’s width. Through placing the smooth diamond directly in front of the laser, the beam can confidently reach the drone, recharging it in flight, removing the need to waste power to carrying big batteries around, and eliminated the need to interrupt flight.
Diamonds are excellent conductors of heat when the high-density laser beam passes through them - they can dissipate the heat source, and allow even more energy to pass through. The result is a strong beam of light with very low divergence, with the potential to reach several hundred meters.
Capabilities of Diamond Lasers
At the moment, the capabilities of the diamond laser are limited to powering small drones for indefinite periods of time at about a 10-meter range. However, we can expect to see the rapid development of this technology, and in a few years, we should see this range expand to around 100 meters.
The potential for this technology knows no bounds, in the more distant future, it’s entirely possible that this innovation could be recharging satellites orbiting the earth, a project with LakeDiamond have already invested in. Given that the Swiss team is not the only company developing this idea, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for example, are working on their own laser-based drone recharging system, we can expect to see rapid developments in capabilities and applications.
Source
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author expressed in their private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited T/A AZoNetwork the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and conditions of use of this website.