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Comment by zigzaggy | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn't we skip directly to wireless charging?

I assume all the hardware they want to hook up is ultimately being powered by a battery. wireless power delivery is significantly less efficient than wired. it's not enough to matter when you're drawing from mains, but probably a big deal when you're drawing from a battery that soldiers have to lug around in the field.

Aside of the excellent points raised by leetcrew in sibling post, there's also the matter of avoiding spurious EM emissions.

Wireless charging sounds like creating a bright, pulsating "soldiers be hiding here" beacon for any opposing force.

Most likely a beacon for mines and IEDs

Was a pretty common argument against "smart passports" doesn't matter if the stored data is encrypted, just matters that a signal is detected from a first world target in range of the mine/IED.

It also had me imagine a far future scenario where soldiers get too close to an enemy and accidentally recharge the enemy's depleted railgun.

Amusing scenario however don't expect it to be a significant risk - any wireless system would most probably perform negotiations before beaming out any significant amount of power. You want that to avoid damaging sensitive electronics, overheating a random chunk of metal, or plainly wasting energy.

Even the good old Qi wireless charging standard does negotiations, tho those aren't secured by any means.

It's probably easier to just have some sort of magsafe-like connector for power and data inside the vehicle. Charge the batteries with something like USB-PD to get the most out of the time a soldier might be stationary in the vehicle. Use the data connection to allow everyone's communications to go through the vehicle radio.

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