plawolf
Lieutenant General
With new improvements and breakthroughs in non-contact charging technologies, the issue of energy storage and batteries may well cease to be a problem. We are already seeing the first generation of non-contact charging technogies have already been commercialised in the form of charge plats where all you need to do is place your electronic devices on it and it will recharge them with no need to plug the devices in.
The next generation of such chargers will aim to be able to charge devices without having to be in physical contact with them. Once that bottleneck has been breached, increasing the range and power output of such chargers will potentially revolutionise UAV technologies.
Small insect sized spy drones would only be the tip of the iceburge. Imagine satellites fitted with such chargers and beaming the energy collected by their solar panels down to high flying UAVs or maybe even manned fighters and bombers or even missiles.
Having such contactless charging tech could allow UAVs to stay in the air indefinitely and replace satellites to a certain degree, manned AWACS can carry bigger/more powerful radars and more fuel if they do not need to carry heavy batteries/generators or have to burn fossil fuels to generate power, when direct energy weapons become powerful enough and small enough to mount on fighters, being able to top up the batteries without having to land or physically plug into a tanker/charger would allow the fighters to carry smaller batteries and have more combat persistence etc. The possibilities really are new endless.
The next generation of such chargers will aim to be able to charge devices without having to be in physical contact with them. Once that bottleneck has been breached, increasing the range and power output of such chargers will potentially revolutionise UAV technologies.
Small insect sized spy drones would only be the tip of the iceburge. Imagine satellites fitted with such chargers and beaming the energy collected by their solar panels down to high flying UAVs or maybe even manned fighters and bombers or even missiles.
Having such contactless charging tech could allow UAVs to stay in the air indefinitely and replace satellites to a certain degree, manned AWACS can carry bigger/more powerful radars and more fuel if they do not need to carry heavy batteries/generators or have to burn fossil fuels to generate power, when direct energy weapons become powerful enough and small enough to mount on fighters, being able to top up the batteries without having to land or physically plug into a tanker/charger would allow the fighters to carry smaller batteries and have more combat persistence etc. The possibilities really are new endless.