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Remember seeing this a little while ago too - https://www.fastcompany.com/91089861/this-genius-vampire-dro...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-uekD6VTIQ has a video of their drone on a power line.

Discussed april/may 2024

"'Vampire drone' can leech electricity from power lines to live forever" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40317484

"Autonomous Overhead Powerline Recharging for Uninterrupted Drone Operations" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39945733

The prototype in the linked video was first tested back in 2023, and since then a few startups have set their sights on the technology (e.g. Nomadic Drones and Voltair). When working on the linked prototype we ran into some fundamental issues. Firstly, the recharging will only work with AC lines, and there's currently a lot of hype around UHVDC lines which are not compatible. Secondly, the AC lines must carry substantial current (ideally thousands of amps) for the recharging to not take forever. You can of course carry a much larger transformer on the drone to compensate, but this will in turn severely limit your flight time (ours was 1kg on a drone of 4.5kg and we could charge with 50W from 300A line current). You also have to account for significant daily fluctuations in the line current. It'll be interesting to see how the tech evolves, and I'll definitely be following these startups closely.

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