DARPA has tapped Raytheon to design and develop a wireless, airborne relay system to "deliver energy into contested environments," as part of its Energy Web Dominance program, in which DARPA wants to be able to power anything from nearly anywhere.
Under a two-year, US$10 million DARPA contract, Raytheon will create a
Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) system, using a series of high altitude unmanned aircraft equipped with laser-based power receiving and transmitting capabilities. Energy will be beamed up to high altitude, then relayed across however many jumps are necessary to reach the target area. That target might be on the ground, or it might itself be another autonomous aerial platform, in which case it could stay airborne as long as necessary, its batteries being constantly charged from afar.
With enough of these power-relaying birds in the air, the POWER system creates an "energy web" that military logisticians can use to route energy where it's most needed at a moment's notice. It's a supply line in the sky, capable of giving land, sky or sea-based robots indefinite endurance, or sending the same energy elsewhere if it's strategically necessary.
newatlas.com
