With a drone encased in a full faraday cage, how would the operator control it? Therein lies the problem unless it was preprogrammed and fully autonomous. That might work.
Then run a simple optical fiber cable for communication to an antenna that lies outside the cage.
If you are really good you have multiple antennas that are kept off (with the circuit physically disconnected from the antenna). If you get hit with a pulse activate the next antenna.
It's possible to make simple electronics that can survive such a pulse, with auto-reset fusible links, and you use those for activating the antenna.
Or even a small door and "push" the antenna out of the Faraday cage when needed.
Drones carry their own power source - usually a LiPo battery.
What you're proposing would not work if the phaser could just keep firing (which seems likely). Onboard AI seems the solution (assuming the Faraday cage is effective enough, which remains to be seen).
You misunderstood me. Use that to provide power to the antenna which is outside the Faraday cage, and the battery is inside.
> What you're proposing would not work if the phaser could just keep firing
The phaser has a range though. So program the drone to fly up and away if it gets hit (no need for AI to do that). Then reactivate communication and stay away from the phaser area.
Source: I flew UAVs "drones" for the US Army for 482 combat flight hours in Iraq. Lookup the wikipedia for "Ground Control Station" for an old pic of an 18 year old me @ the UAV training center "black tower" in Ft Huachuca, AZ.
This is a problem as microwaves are in the centimeter range. The mesh then would have to be dense. That would raise aerodynamic issues.
I'm not saying it's not doable. I'm just raising the obvious concerns about basic challenges from the laws of physics.
Heck, all the wires, electronics, and motors could be inside the "arm". Then coat that with some EM shield material (like a metal foil).
I like it.
Of course, from "like it" to "it's actually effective" there's still the nagging little field test to perform. It's the old shell-vs-armor game, since EM radiation has a penetration depth - Faraday cages are not magically 100% effective, make a thin enough one, and a powerful EMP would still do some damage inside. So now you need to carry thicker, heavier EMP armor.
However it also means the drone has no GPS; no wireless signaling; no sensors outside the foil at all. It becomes a dumbfire dead-reckoning device.
No, they are not. Even a continuous, zero-hole metallic bubble will leak some radiation inside, depending on frequency, nature of material, wall thickness, etc.
Start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_depth
then continue reading about absorbance, skin effect, etc.
Two real issues with massive RF energy density:
1. Penetration depth. Even if you have a continuous metallic bubble with no holes, some RF radiation still leaks inside, depending on material nature, thickness, frequency, etc. The amount is small, but it's not zero.
2. If energy density in the RF beam is huge enough, the shield / cage starts heating up. You could conceivably melt it if you take this game far enough, or poke holes in it.
With regard to #1, I agree, but the degree of RF leakage is not universally small - it depends on the frequencies you encounter and the properties of your cage (material, mesh thickness and "pore" size, etc). As frequency increases (and wavelength decreases), your pore size must decrease to effectively block it, eventually becoming a solid shell (through which propellers will, of course, generate no thrust). I agree with #2.
No. In a conductor, all free charges migrate to the outside surface.