US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced on its website and Twitter account that it is working on the next step forward in energy distribution by leveraging wireless power beaming to create a dynamic, adaptive, light-speed wireless energy web. The institution later removed the announcement from its webpage.
The Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program aims to design and test airborne optical energy relays. These relays are essential for coupling ground-sourced lasers with high-altitude, efficient long-range transmission. Furthermore, such relays will allow for future multi-path wireless energy networks.
Current military platforms that require long-range, endurance, or significant weapon delivery capability must be physically large to transport the stored energy needed to complete a mission as a liquid fuel. A wireless power transfer network converts platforms into conduits rather than containers, allowing small, low-cost platforms to have significant capabilities such as unlimited range or endurance.
DARPA will also work on conversion efficiency as converting from a propagating wave to electricity and back to a propagating wave at each node causes losses in a multi-hop network.
