This Technology Allows Recharging Drones While In Flight

Landing for recharging – one day – may not be necessary for a drone anymore.

Co-founder of wireless company Global Energy Transmission (GET), William Kallman, recently did an interview with vlogger David Fordham about the company’s new technology that uses an electromagnetic field to maintain drones in mid-air for presumably forever. The interview took place at CES 2019.

As stated by Kallman, what GET has created is called a “power cloud” which assists with charging the drone while it's still flying.

According to Kallman's description in David’s video, the so-called “power cloud” consists of a ground-based power plant with a frame of wires arranged in an almost circular shape. The system when switched on, can create an electromagnetic field in mid-air near that power base. The customized drone, which was equipped with a specific antenna-charging system, could fly into the “power cloud’s” effective area for mid-air charging.

30 minutes of flight time is the result of eight minutes of charging. A set which includes two customized drones and one power station costs $120,000. And each drone is capable of packing 7 kilograms. Apparently, everything goes up does not necessarily have to come down.

As every coin has its two sides, whether these drones can have a good impact on the world without downside or not remains ambiguous. On one hand, some positive usages the drones can bring us are search and rescue operation, package delivery, video recording, etc. On the other hand, it is hard not to imagine the negative impacts these drones can bring, for examples: smuggling, military weaponry, citizen surveillance and so on.

Overall, a drone that remains forever in the air is surely fascinating, especially for making a movie and covering sports events, these were noted by Kallman during the interview. However, it is highly possible that government or military officials will have their eyes on GET’s mid-air charging system as well.