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
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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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[–] LincolnsDogFido@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago

https://academic.oup.com/milmed/advance-article/doi/10.1093/milmed/usaf613/8404557

It doesn't mention specific cases, but there's a local man who described his time working on radar arrays during his time in the Navy before he was medically discharged. His explanation of events was that he turned off the array while he was performing maintenance on a specific radar antenna, but someone turned it back on when he was still working. He said he heard the array come back online and stopped working, but there was thermal damage done to his testes.

I have no reason to doubt him because clearly its possible. But the primary point stands. There's enough evidence within the military to warrant safety guidelines when working with radar emitters.