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Comment by Emrod | Hacker News Reader

Guys, This is Greg Kushnir, founder of Emrod.

I am excited and humbled by your support.

At Emrod we have safety and environmental considerations at the core. I’m happy to explain why our tech is not only safe but also has a far smaller environmental footprint than any powerlines, communications antennas, etc.

As with any new transformative technology, there will always be sceptics. All we can do is rely on solid science and engineering, listen to the public and address their concerns.

I invite you to engage us in an open honest conversation. We would love to hear your concerns, thoughts about possible applications, or even just drop us a line to say what you think about wireless power.

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What frequency are you using and over what bandwidth? How many dB down are your sidelobes from your main beam? Are you using parabolic reflectors for your primary antennas, how big are they relative to your wavelength (what's the beamwidth)? What role do meta-materials play, are they the collimating relay? What about the sidelobes on the relay?

Why do you think 100 mW/cm^2 is 'safe'? You must know from experience this is enough for tissue heating, even from sidelobes many dB down.

Over what ranges do you think this is feasible? With, say 20 km of free space path loss in the 2.4 GHz ISM and 40 dB antenna gain at each end you're going to be at least 50 dB down. Doesn't this mean for things like transmitting power to islands this tech is not useful?

Even if you start at 1 KW in (60 dBm), over 20 km the receiving antenna is going to get about 0-10 dBm, or milliwatts.

With the same generous setup at 1 km and 1 kW you get 10 watts at the far end.

This just doesn't work out.

The antenna size is governed by the wavelength and the distance between Tx and Rx (or relays).

There are no sidelobes. We are using near-field and catching close to 100% of the radiated energy.

Range is only limited by line of site and an antenna size which is practical. Mind you, we can reduce antenna size and increase range by using passive relays.

Using a phased array, operating in the near-field. strictly point-to-point between Tx/Rx.

At the moment we are working with about 60% end to end efficiency so sending 1kw means you will get 600w at the far end… not 1w :)

As far as I understand it near-field effects stop being relevant at a couple of wavelengths away from the transmitter. For 2.4ghz that would give you what, a meter of distance?

Can you link me to reading material explaining how an antenna can have no sidelobes?

Near-field is only a few wavelengths away when the antenna itself is a half wavelength in dimension. Otherwise you would calculate the size of the near field as a function of the physical dimension of the antenna and the wavelength: r2 = 2d^2/λ.

E.g. The radiating near field of a 2.4GHz antenna about 8 meters long would extend about 1km.

[1] - https://www.giangrandi.org/electronics/anttool/regions.shtml

Thanks for clearing that up!

search up beam forming, phased arrays, collimated beams and metamaterial based beam guides

Right, but even a phased array will give you sidelobes, it's only a question about reducing them, right? Your claim that there are no sidelobes at all seems a bit dubious to me.

Or is there some metamaterial "magic" going on even at the transmitter that I'm not accounting for?

:)) no magic, just solid engineering. There will always be sidle-lobes. The question is how much and what do you do with it.

> There will always be sidle-lobes.

Right, and anybody who knows enough to ask you about sidelobes likely also knows enough to know that too.

That's why, if you reply that "there are no sidelobes" you're only harming your own credibility.

A good reply is something like "there are sidelobes, but they peak at -{believable number} dB and are contained to within {small area}. We believe this is more than sufficient to address sidelobe concerns because of {standards}".

That's a reply that earns trust.

You are right of course. Point taken. Thanks :)

Reads more like he doesn't want to tell you what he's doing with the sidelobes, in case you DO get it.

Whereas the question-train you're on is at a pretty interrogative clip ..

"I'm not disclosing basic performance metrics because you might reverse engineer my secret sauce from the basic performance metrics"? Really? Seems unlikely.

"I'm not gonna discuss the finer details with people on HN who are more than likely able to exploit the same discoveries if I share too much .."

Very feasible.

These aren't finer details, they're basic metrics.

Hypothesis A: they don't want to share basic performance metrics because they contain special secret sauce!

Hypothesis B: they don't want to share basic performance metrics because they suck.

We'll see!

A few comments above you said:

> There are no sidelobes

How do you get around the inverse power law? Is the beamforming that perfect?

Yeah, there aren't enough details here to prove the claims. Not to mention, how much power do the "transmitting relays" use. Those sound like they need to be active devices that require a power source. Yes you can siphon off power from the beam, but with all the losses involved it doesn't seem to make sense.

relays are passive and require no power. quasi-optics.

Does this mean that the meta-material lenses are custom built for each relay station? For example, to bend the beam around fixed obstacles like a mountain. Do you believe this will be a barrier to manufacturing and installation?

Or are you creating a generic lens that is factory tuneable to the needed characteristics?

Great question! in fact... so good that I cant answer it properly without divulging some of the secret source.

Suffice to say that you are on to some of our more interesting IP ;)

60% end to end efficiency at what distance? It's a function of distance. I'm guessing about 30 meters?

efficiency is not a function of distance when there is no lose in the atmosphere :)

At the moment we are working with about 60% end to end efficiency

If path loss doesn't matter to you then you've revolutionized both communications and war.

There's spread over distance. If you've found a way to prevent spread it's either not free space or a change to the electromagnetics fundamentals. It's a really bold claim to make. But maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

Eliminating path loss has always been relatively easy if both ends never move. I’m assuming they mean negligible spread over the distance tested instead of no spread.

I work with radio, and I'm not sure how exactly you are "eliminating" path loss on any sort of real world link, even ones fixed in position. Even very high gain antennas and very small wavelengths are going to spread the energy out to some degree over any non-trivial distance (most links I work on are 10km+, so maybe your definition of non-trivial distances are different than mine).

> there is no lose in the atmosphere

I know bullshit when someone spells it out for me.

Maybe they found a frequency that is not absorbed by the athmosphere that much. Seems far-fetched with the gas mix that the athmosphere is, but I guess that such frequencies would be company IP.

Instruments that sweep all frequencies have been available since shortly after the dawn of radio and public atmospheric absorption tables have been available for nearly as long. Also, absorption bands tend to be very broad in this region, so after 10 or 20 data points there's nowhere for a magic frequency to hide.

You are correct. There's no magic at work here. We don't break the laws of physics, we just flex them with clever engineering... like most innovators that came before us.

Path loss through free space at these relatively low frequencies (<6 GHz) isn't from air/water vapor losses. It's from diffraction spread.

This company can say all they want about near field tech, but the beam waist diameter relative to wavelength determines the diffraction spread. And that aspect of path loss is proportional to the distance in wavelengths even if there's no "absorption" by the air components. For any reasonable link at 2.4-5.8 GHz the length in wavelengths will be tens of thousands.

The equations governing diffraction are relatively straight forward. We are operating within the near-field (or more accurately in the Frensel range). I'm sure you can do the math and see how focusing a phased array can reduce diffraction at this range :)

Just make sure to do your liability math because in a about a year you're going to have a lot of investors very angry at you.

This reference from 2007 wherr a lab at MIT demonstrated wireless power transfer, may be relevant for explaining inductive coupling and the idea that this is not radiative (far field) power transfer - correct me if this technology is fundamentally different:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5834/83

Coupling has nothing to do with Emrod tech. Its intrinsically limited to low power and small range. It is also has a much more significant impact on health and safty.

Ok understood. The "near field" comment made me think it was the same thing... I don't understand how this works then (not a criticism, just a walking back from thinking I got it)

line of sight

What frequency or range of frequencies is used?

Typically 2.4 - 5.8GHz

My understanding of wave physics is minimal, but at the strengths you're broadcasting at wont this completely drown out any wifi signals nearby?

No. we are beaming strictly point-to-point in the near field unlike WiFi, Bluetooth, RFIF, etc
Unless of course we are beaming directly at a coms antenna, which we don't plan to :)

Wow, it's cool to see all of the collective knowledge that people bring to hackernews comments. Very interesting questions! Hope Emrod answers them.

Seconding all the above questions..
For micro-power IoT, maybe there's a play, but bulk power delivery this seems a stretch.
In case anyone's wondering, 40dB antenna at either end is reasonably some 14ft across at 2.4GHz, so no small thing.

What are you basing your statement on? have you actually done the math?

Indeed [1]. For context I design antennas for a living (yes including "meta-materials", AESA, and high power), so not the first wireless power transfer design I've encountered. If this is different, awesome, I'd love to read a whitepaper.
All I'm saying is I hope you have a background in EM. There's lots of stuff that sounds great in approximation and models, but breaks down in reality.
[1] G=4piA/lambda^2 - I tacked on 70% eff which is mid-high for a parabolic dish

https://www.rfwireless-world.com/calculators/Horn-Antenna-Ca...
for instance. Put in a 3 by 5 meter aperture, and bam, 40dB on the nose.

My first knee-jerk reaction was rather negative. But I came across this:
> The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on.
...which seems to be proof that you're aware of it's dangers and have taken steps to mitigate it. This is a good sign in my book.
I also note that the beam is controlled by
> relays, which are like “lenses” extending the beam beyond line-of-sight by refocusing it, are nearly lossless
If you've not reached coherence, how do your control diffusion? Do you have plans to have 'relays' at very regular intervals in order to constrain the beam to an (cross sectional) area so that it remains safe for organic life?

We use coherent beaming.
The interval between relays largely depends on topographical, regulatory, and environmental conditions.
In any case, all our systems are designed to be absolutely safe for any organic life form.
Despite initial perception (mostly driven by the 5G frenzy I presume), if you do the research you'll realise that it is the most environmentally friendly solution out there. This is how EBDs can go green! No ELF, no people or animals immersed in RF or electrocuted, no carbon emission, no cutting through forests and rivers with huge pylons and no underwater cables disturbing marine life.
I hope this addressed your concerns?

No underwater cables disturbing marine life, but 20% more turbines to make up for the efficiency loss!

And also 20% more gas for when it's not blowing or sunny or the dam is low.
We don't have high capacity (centralised nor distributed) grid scale batteries in many places yet.
What it boils down it is, even if this works, which I doubt, 20% transmission loss makes this a niche market at best.

Given NZ's geography, a niche like providing remote pilot projects power until cable or renewables are constructed would make the tech worth pursuing. You could back out without sunken costs or environment damage if the pilot doesn't go ahead.
NZ is proposing to go fully renewable by 2030 as well as promoting higher EV targets for 2023. We already import many right-hand drive Nissan Leafs reaching their 7-year EOL from Japan, so re-purposed batteries for off-grid storage will become very cost effective in short order.
Our aluminium smelter is also slated to close in a year which frees up about 10% - 15% of national electricity, and we have pumped storage for day/night loads separate from hydro.
Given the political climate here, niche opportunities abound imo.

Transmitter is a cw maser?

I have a few questions:
As mentioned in a top-level comment, this could be incredibly dangerous, depending on the properties of the microwave generator. Can you say what the maximum level of power density experienced outside of the laser boundaries will be? Can you give attenuation figures?
The Powerco project is listed as "a few kilowatts." What range of distances do you intend to test?
How do you expect weather to affect efficiency? Have you tested the transmission in a driving rain? Or will you turn off the system in inclement weather?

This is NOT "incredibly dangerous". This is the sort of lazy internet commenting that doesn’t rely on actual research. There will always going to be sceptics. All we can do is rely on solid science and engineering and engage people to address genuine concerns.
The distances we are looking at are progressive from a few hundred meters to a few kilometres. Range is only limited by line of site and an antenna size which is practical. Mind you, we can reduce antenna size and increase range by using passive relays.
At the moment we are working with about 60% end to end efficiency. This is not influenced by weather as we are using near-field atmospherically agnostic frequencies.

Dismissing legitimate concerns by calling them "lazy" and "sceptics" is unhelpful. Stating your technology is safe due to "science and engineering" without explaining the science/engineering is unhelpful.
There is real people who have real concerns that if they accidentally pass thought the beam of power then they will be cooked.
If the safety of you technology is based on it being installed in such a way that no one would accidentally pass through the beam then you need to explain how that is done.
if the safety is because it is just not dangerous to pass through the beam then you need to explain why that is and if there is a time limit on how long it is safe to stay in the beam.
If you are incapable of addressing safety concerns to a technical crowd like hacker news then I don't see how you would convince the general public to be cool with this.
Just to keep beating a dead horse, stating something is safe because "science and engineering" is pretty much the modern day way of saying because "magic".

> Dismissing legitimate concerns by calling them "lazy" and "sceptics" is unhelpful
Agreed. I have significant experience in this field and I’m having difficulty making heads or tails of half of the company’s explanations here. I can’t tell if it’s an attempt at watered-down explanations assuming a non-technical audience, or if they’re simply trying to change the subject whenever the difficult questions come up.
Now that they’re resorting to ad-hominem (“lazy” comments to legitimate questions without even attempting to answer the questions) I’m becoming even more skeptical.

having gone through the employees of the company and looked at their backgrounds and how long they've worked at the company, and the CEO (guy in thread) describes himself as "Serial tech entrepreneur and growth hacker, with over 15 years trajectory in deep tech, Internet, and mobile. Turning great ideas into successful businesses. Specializes in Disruptive Innovation, Rapid Prototyping and Technology Commercialization.", basically, this Emrod guy will have no idea how this really works. Their "lead" scientist is a guy called Ray Simpkin, who seems reputable, but hasn't really worked in this area too much, and so far their only demonstration is something over 2m. I got a feeling reality is going to bite this company in the ass, but happy to wait for actual evidence of long range transmission. It seems everything is pretty much hype based on a lab experiment, likely trying to get some investment $s

Thanks for digging that up, helps in setting the expectations for the whole thing to correct level.
I guess this goes into the same bucket I have had for new battery/energy storage technologies for the last 10 years: until there is an actual, working prototype fulfilling ALL of the promised features, it doesn't exist for me.
Having been working with IoT hardware for over a decade, I used to get so excited that new advances in energy storage would solve some of the problems. Yeah, I'm still waiting :)

Thanks for your 5 minutes of research, biased interpretation, insulting use of quotations and incorrect summary of "this Emrod guy will have no idea how this really works". I know some of the people on the team and can assure you that they know how it works.

>an attempt at watered-down explanations assuming a non-technical audience
I think this is the case. The founder, or whatever PR employee is handling these comments, has misjudged hackernews and assumed that it is used by the same nontechnical crowd as facebook or twitter.
Pretty sure lots of top researchers use this forum. Talking down to them with a "It works using science and engineering :)" won't go down well.

I think they use lasers to detect obstructions and cut transmission off.

"This is the sort of lazy internet commenting"
That's not really fair. High powered microwave transmission is dangerous.
You're claiming near field, non radiating, and so, safe.
Fair enough, but you're also claiming long distance. That requires a little more explanation. They call it "near field" for a reason, right?

I'm about as unqualified to comment on this general topic as your average 6th grade dropout. To me, a "sidelobe" sounds like something you'd get at a shopping mall ear piercing stand.
So it says something that even I can tell that this poor guy is out of his depth. He shows up to HN (a community of smart people who are willing to listen to the unorthodox), solicits questions, and gets defensive when people ... ask him questions.
This won't end well. I'll get some popcorn.
PS: brother, it's "line of sight". I know spelling well doesn't change the world but sheesh.

It's interesting how 'I'm not an expert and even I can see that...' sounds like a convincing argument, but it is often the preface of someone missing something non-obvious.
(Though I don't think you have to be a subject-matter expert to judge human interactions. Just wanted to point out the invalid line of reasoning.)

I'm probably about to embarrass myself, but I got stuck on this comment. I am trying to make sense of it and I can't. Can you please help me out:
When someone says "I'm not an expert and even I can see that...", they are presumably implying that even without the technical knowledge required to spot an obvious 'fake' or 'quack', perhaps an impostor, they can still identify said impostor.
In this case that seems to me to be a valid statement. Albeit one of relatively low value, since nothing much has been added to the discussion. All we now know, is, that the impostor has overreached and even laypeople can call their bluff (and an additional audience member has confirmed this to us). But that's it.
I want to see how this is often the preface of someone missing something non-obvious though? What is the non-obvious thing in this case, that the parent commenter is missing?

Haha, I don't see how your comment should be embarrassing. So often when something seems "obviously wrong" for , the reason for that is not because it is actually wrong, but because it only appears so for non-obvious reasons that elide those without subject-matter expertise.
So even if the conclusion is right, the fact that the person drawing it is uneducated is not a justification for it. After all, the same justification could be given in a case in which that conclusion did not hold.

Thank you for the elaboration. And thank you for sticking with me here :)
So, if I am getting this right, we have the following factors: Person A makes a statement (this could be an impostor or not-impostor), Person B observes that there is an impostor at work (or not) and Person B could either be educated or not and lastly, whether they agree or not.
So we have the following possibilities:
1.) A -> non-impostor -> B educated (B trusts A based on shared knowledge, easy)
2.) A -> non-impostor -> B uneducated (B has to trust A, A made argument well enough to convince B, but B has nothing but a 'feeling' to rely on)
3.) A -> impostor -> B educated (B immediately figures out A is a sharlatan based on knowledge, argument ensues...or it's just obvious A is no good)
4.) A -> impostor -> B uneducated (B has figured out A is an impostor, but that could be for who-knows-what reasons and is therefore less valid)
And the conclusion here is that in case 4.), the person has used their lack of education about the subject matter as a way to add weight to their statement (or to embarrass the impostor further), when, in actuality their lack of education just indicates that they have little reason to participate in the discussion in the first place.
Am I now kind of getting it? I feel I'm being slow today, but it bugs me when I don't understand something.

The cases in which B is educated doesn't really matter for the point I'm trying to make.
There are two relevant cases:
1. A is a non-impostor, B uneducated -> B has to trust A, but A's argument seems flawed because B doesn't know of the non-obvious feature that fixes the apparent obvious flaw in their argument.
2. A is an impostor, B uneducated -> B has to trust A, but A's argument seems flawed because their is an obvious flaw in their argument that even B can spot.
From the point of view of B, there is no way to distinguish between these two situations, and so their being uneducated doesn't help them spot the impostor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_lobe

I haven't found any of the comments in this thread particularly alarming. However, I find your overall defensiveness, inability to answer simple technical questions directly, and your tactic of answering questions with questions casting doubt on the asker to be extremely disconcerting.
That sounds major alarm bells to me of either serious technical issues or, perhaps more likely, fraud.
If the tech IS actually working and safe, a proposition which grows increasingly doubtful with every comment you make, you are NOT the right person to be running this thread, and you are doing serious damage to Emrod's PR.

Between Tesla FSD, Neuralink, Nikola, the litany of fake listed Chinese companies like Luckin, this is truly the golden age of fraud. No surprise if this is one.

It's also the age of NZ launching it's own satellites. Sadly this thread bumping up against the Nikola investigation seems to have tainted this thread with doubters. Growing up in NZ we are taught to have an inventive spirit even without resources. Using "number eight wire" as we call it. Stories about farmers inventing jet-boats to head up rapids looking for lost sheep, or a young Peter Beck with a rocket on the back of his bike, then naming his rockets after Rutherford. Not saying every kiwi invention is a winner, but don't let the knockers put you off trying is all.

How do you handle rain scatter? I'm not an RF engineer but my understanding is that rain scatters GHz range signals quite effectively. It doesn't absorb them, but it would unfocus the beam.
How is this being handled?

Rain has negligible affect on EM propagation in the frequencies we are operating in.
See: http://gsp.humboldt.edu/OLM/Courses/GSP_216_Online/lesson2-1...

I hope you have a better source for your claim than that! That page only says that water won't absorb the radiation. Even if water is transparent in those bands, you still have to deal with its refractive index, which can mean reflection and scattering. Have you tested this?
And, do you know for certain that it won't interfere with your laser safety system?

I'm far from an expert in this field but rain scatter is definitely a thing on all GHz bands. It's more of a problem (or a way of propagation depending on how you see it) with 5GHz and up. Climate and the size of the droplets also matter as the wavelength changes.
Presumably there would be forward scatter and back scatter to deal with I don't see how you could avoid that.
Furthermore, comments about beamforming and that it uses a phased array isn't surprising with regards to the application but you will still have sidelobes, even with a very tight beamwidth / high gain.
And then you have path loss etc, I have no idea how this would actually work - it sounds unfeasible on many fronts.

Why use lasers? Why not just monitor input power and output power, and if the difference is too great infer that the power is being lost somewhere (ie. being absorbed by an obstruction) and back the power off until the losses/obstruction go away? Either have a dedicated radio /other data link to send this information between the rx/tx, or the information could be modulated onto a power beam if there happens to be one running in that direction. Such a system would be inherently safe compared to defining a beam width with lasers, as it is directly monitoring the thing that causes damage (absorbed power).
(I guess this idea can no longer be patented if it is novel, as this comment has just established prior art!)

I for one would prefer for it to turn off before it detects my head blocking the transmission.

Preasumably you fire a non-destructive laser rays around the beam to shut down the beam when something moves to blocks it.

Cool tech. Out of curiosity have you considered using this technology as a backup source for hospitals and other critical infrastructure? Maybe via dedicated access tunnels underground in a city or a rooftop antenna in a more rural area?
Not sure if this is as big a problem in NZ but in Canada beavers and squirrels can and do shutdown sections of the grid - as can falling trees and large frozen branches in the winter. I can see a rural hospital benefitting from a redundant dedicated power source.

Wouldn't a generator serve this role more easily? Less physical infrastructure, and what happens if the remote (only a few km) transmitter is also blacked out?

You could use a generator. You could also use a steam engine to power your car. But most of us prefer the cleaner, safer, more efficient solutions :)
Wouldn't you agree that replacing fossil fuel based generators with a cleaner and cheaper alternative is worthwhile?

Not exactly a fair comparison, and dodging the point. Use a hydrogen generator if you prefer. Or a battery for that matter (as indeed our cars are headed). Point is it might be easier to be self-reliant (calculated local storage) than contrive a secondary power delivery pathway.

I can't imagine generators that are used to accommodate intermittent power loss would contribute materially to overall carbon emissions.

You are spot on. this is one of the best use cases for Emrod tech

How do you reconcile the fact that this would still require local storage or generation resources at the receiving end? If to make this safe there are lasers to detect beam intrusions and shut off the link, users who require a steady supply could never depend on your technology.
This is due to the fact that there is no way to reliably forecast when a bird will fly in front of the link and shut it off. Since the receiver will still need storage or generation, it's probably more economical to just do that in the first place.

Hi, not sure how you came to the conclusion that "still require local storage or generation resources at the receiving end". the whole point is replacing those with a steady connection to the national grid. the only difference being it would be wireless rather than copper based.
A transient object like a bird would not have a significant affect on continuity of supply. it is very small compared to the Tx/Rx surface and doesn't linger in the beam path.
Wouldn't you agree that replacing expensive imported polluting fossil fuel generation with a cleaner and cheaper locally sustainably generated energy is worthwhile?

> doesn't linger in the beam path.
You cannot guarantee this. The bird could decide to fly directly down the beam path and there's nothing you can do.
Directly from the article:
> The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on.
Since there are so many possible obstructions that could occur, I suspect that the link will continuously turn on and off. This will be worse than before so you'll need local storage or generation to account for these unplanned outages.

> You cannot guarantee this. The bird could decide to fly directly down the beam path and there's nothing you can do.
This sounds like the kind of thing that is technically possible but in practical probability a once in a millennium event

Being wireless it would be easier to set up redundant links.

Is the Rf exposure to the bird significant?

Else where in thread someone said 100 mw/cm^2. Not great, not terrible. Maybe 1/5 of putting bird in a microwave. Cooking time would be long but you may be able to get it to work

Frankly, I have concerns about birds. Insects are sub wavelength, so they won't be impacted, or at least the impact won't be obvious.
But the birds moving around...
Guess we shall see. That's what field tests are for.

Can you clarify the 70% efficiency claim in the article? I assume this is 70% efficiency of DC conversion of received power, and not any sort of end-to-end metric?

Reporters sometimes tend to pretend they are novelist and get many details wrong (to put it mildly)
70% efficiency is the current state of the art limit for solid state based Tx. we loose close to 0% in the atmosphere and our Rx is well beyond 90% efficient.

Thanks, but that doesn’t really clarify anything about your technology.
What end-to-end efficiency are you getting and at what distance?

Theoretically any distance is possible. Practically, we are limited by antenna size considerations.
For example, we are currently looking at powering an island across a distance of 30km with an end-to-end efficiency of around 60%.

Wow! Please do set up an aggressive schedule to build the first space solar station. The Earth urgently needs its Dyson swarm already. With such distances under test you are very close to the goal.
I bet Musk will be your best friend if you brief him with such project ;)

Your Linkedin profile mentions a US patent for "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR LONG-RANGE WIRELESS POWER TRANSFER", yet the only Google result is that Linkedin profile or yours.
Is the patent application still unapproved and thus unlisted, or has it been rejected?

The patent is easy to find, but not yet public because it is still pending approval. I am interested in the technical details disclosed in it.
https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2019904254A0

Almost all patent applications are published after 18 months, even if they are still unapproved, or indeed will never be approved.
The major exceptions are if the inventor files for nonpublication along with withdrawing the application (usually because they think it won't be patentable) or the US Government classifies it.

How would you prevent electricity theft in a system like this?

It would be pretty easy to simply stop the beam altogether if it’s interrupted on the receiving end. No power for me = no power for you.

What safety measures do you have in place for beam squint under frequency deviations? What band is it operating in?
Also curious, what are the advantages over a maser?

Its in the article. ISM band. typically 2.4-5.8GHz. there are a number of safety measures. some based on a feedback loop, laser safety screen and others. cant go over all those details in a gimmicky article :))

You're posting in a tech community that specifically wants the details that go deeper than a "gimmicky article." Based off of your comments here, you're acting like a rude charlatan.
This is technology that not everyone is familiar with. Some questions people want to know are surely:
1.) What makes it safe? Is it that the beam itself is harmless? Harmless for long term exposure, too? Or is it that the beam isn't harmless, but the system has systems in place to break the beam if obstructed?
2.) Will other technology be affected? Would drones, etc, interacting with the beam be adversely affected?
3.) HOW is this relatively unaffected by distance? So far I've heard you say that it isn't impacted by the atmosphere, but I think people are still curious to know more.
4.) How is this not impacted by rain/humidity? You linked an article regarding water not absorbing radiation, but didn't address the subsequent claims regarding refraction.
The point is. This is a technical place, please answer some of people's questions and stop just dismissing everyone as ignorant skeptics.

Will this disrupt other signals in the ISM band? If E2E efficiency is 60% there's maybe 30% radiating uncaptured? 400w is enough to jam anything else using the band for a long ways, maybe a kilometer?

It could be that the radiating efficiency of the hardware is only 60%, ie lost to heat or in some other phenomena in the circuitry.
I'd imagine they'd never get approved blasting 400w per kW erratically.

No "erratic blasting" intended :) this is NOT like a strong WiFi.
We are using a strictly point to point collimated beam that is expected to meet nothing but clear air. It shuts down if/when any transient object is about to enter the beam path.
Also, don't forget that the important figure you should be looking at is power density rather than total power

> expected to meet nothing but clear air.
You also claimed it's unaffected by rain.
Which is it?

He claims there is a laser safety screen that cuts the beam off if it is tripped.
Rain will trip the laser screen, as will fog.
Ergo, this will only work in clear air. Rain and fog will shut it down.

In New Zealand, of all places, that's going to make this technology useless.

Yeah he replied elsewhere that capture is over 90% so maybe not problematic

Thanks for the info. Good luck with the company.

I was wondering how the 70% efficiency compares to copper. I assume copper isn't 100% efficient, but how efficient is it?
Thanks for answering questions here!

Compared to this, extremely small, but compared to the overall economics, quite significant.
Here is a chart of transmission losses from the source to the end user across US states: http://insideenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/State_Los...

End to end efficiency is absolutely critical for making any wireless power endeavour viable.
Beyond delivery loss, don't forget that there are other CAPEX/OPEX considerations.
For example, an underwater cable from an offshore wind-farm might be a more efficient means of energy delivery but it's installation and maintenance cost would be much much higher and require more time to deploy than a wireless solution.
That is inevitably a significant part of any economic benchmarking.

HackerNews commenters can always be counted on to do two things: assume that they are more informed than anyone else and refuse to read the article.
When an actual expert shows up they often waste effort on the first comments before the good comments have shown up. This was a good effort from an expert and answering questions in no way damages credibility or disproves the efficacy of the technology or any of the other nonsense that has been asserted by a community in decline.

This is great. happy to see someone picking up Tesla's project of 100 years ago.

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