A team of researchers in northwest China says it has developed a way to use high-energy laser beams, not to destroy drones but to keep them in the air “forever”.
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Many countries, including China, are developing powerful laser systems as anti-drone weapons. But Professor Li Xuelong and his colleagues from the Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) approached the drone-laser relationship from another angle.
They thought that if a drone was fitted with a photoelectric conversion module that converted light energy into electricity, a high-energy laser beam could not only track it, but also power it remotely.
The team, from NPU’s school of artificial intelligence, optics and electronics, said a recent experiment had successfully combined the autonomous charging process with intelligent signal transmission and processing technology – demonstrating the unlimited endurance potential for optics-driven drones (ODD).
“Highlights of the research are 24-hour intelligent vision tracking system and the autonomous long-range energy replenishment for ODD,” the team reported on NPU’s official WeChat account last week.
According to the researchers, the first challenge was to track the drones in the air. The team developed a tracking algorithm based on intelligent visuals to follow and accurately predict ODD targets as they fly.
