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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

based on terrain and other logistical challenges in Afghanistan I bet you $5 that sending a 20' ISO container packed with solar panel/ground mounting/advanced battery system would accomplish a whole lot more kWh per month than a "power over microwave" system from some central point to regional FOBs.

1.0km and 60% efficient is not very impressive.

various parts of the DoD are very interested in things like hydrogen fuel cell generators, more advanced/efficient diesel generators, prepackaged photovoltaic power systems, etc. they fund and buy prototypes all the time. they're well aware of the problem in transporting liquid fuel around.

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Plenty of applications at 1 km and 60 % are possible, many devices are small and becomes easier to operate around a outpost if powering them wasn’t impractical with wiring , or have short battery lives

Recharging drones is a good example, depending on how compact the receiver can be developed you could even integrate into the drone and keeping it up continuously .

There are bots like the stuff Boston dynamics builds that can work in say a minefield or other hostile environments for more time or continuously if you could be beam power to them.

You could use it to recharge cctv and other perimeter monitoring system sensors rapidly in a new output where you haven’t time to do wiring , or the outpost is temporary .

In a urban environment you could to keep you active EM emitting equipment like radar / satellite dishes equipment 1 km away and be safer from missile strikes.

Sure it would be nice to have 100s kW at 10s of km but a kW is plenty of power for a lot of devices and there are solid applications

Seems like it would introduce a single point of failure. Hit the transmitter and all drones, cctv, etc will shortly go down. Even if they had a handful of microwave stations that feels very vulnerable for powering the military effort.

You could hit the generator and the backup if that exists, or your cut the wires . These problems already exist , microwave is not changing that .

Yea, seems like easier technology is out there for real battle zones. I think this wireless power idea would be best in disaster scenario areas on the US mainland after weather events.

They could pre-ship out the dishes to EMA agencies around the country. Quickly deploy in a few hours and re-power areas that have been destroyed by hurricanes/tornadoes/wildfires until the electrical grid is re-established or a ISO container can be sent.

That was my first thought as well, but, when you are able to deploy this transmitter, you are most likely also able to deploy a huge generator and some big generator trucks can deliver a thousand times more energy than this wireless thing.

Those solar panels might disclose your location. This is likely substantially more covert.

There’s also a big benefit of refueling electric drones with this.

I'm not sure how passive solar panels would be more covert than actively emitting radiation. Solar panels may be more visible from satellite imagery, but your base is going to be visible anyway. Militaries have been focused on pinpointing micro-wave emitters for decades, it's foundational to detecting radar stations.

This would help hide the receiver of the power, no?

Even the smallest sort of COP or FOB is very obvious where it is - you aren't going to disguise any concrete t-walls, rows of stacked HESCO bastion, perimeter guard towers, etc.

it's a whole construction project to erect one, anybody that lives in the area or has access to half-decent aerial photography is going to know fully where/what it is.

putting up a big-ass tower with a flat microwave receiver array aimed somewhere towards the horizon is going to be even more obvious than ground mount solar.

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