this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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269
China’s ‘land aircraft carrier’ charges flying drone with microwave beam (www.scmp.com)
submitted 1 day ago by FTonsilStones@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
65 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Scientists in China have demonstrated a wireless power transmission system that uses a ground-based microwave emitter to beam energy to an antenna array mounted on the aircraft’s underside. Importantly, they were able to do this while both the drone and charging system were in motion.

In tests, the car-mounted system kept fixed-wing drones in the air for up to 3.1 hours at an altitude of 15 metres (49 feet). The key challenge that the team overcame was maintaining alignment between the emitter and the drone during flight, wrote Song Liwei, the project’s leader.

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[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I mean this is really cool but at the same time doesnt seem usefull? Apparently the peak of modern combat is chinese drones with small bombs and a plastic fiber-optic cable attached to them lol.

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

I’ve lost count of technologies during my lifetime that had initial skeptics of ‘seems cool, but who would use this?,’ and then that tech became ubiquitous or essential within a decade.

Room-sized computers that required punch cards also seemed cool but mostly useless once.

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

There are a lot of different drones being used. For example you can't use fiber-optic for drones that target something 100km afar. Either way the problem with this device is probably the same as with other anti-air systems - it costs, takes time to produce and to train the operator much much much more than to make a drone.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

totaly agree with your firs two points....

re: training and operators - my take on it is this has all the hallmarks of a swarm setup constantly recharging a portion of it's numbers.... Ukraine has illustrated that AI shit's coming quickly, even if llm's and jensen huang are wildly out of touch.