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27 December 2023

The Pentagon Is Forging an Airborne Wireless Energy Grid

TIM NEWCOMB

The U.S. military wants to rethink energy.

The government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants a wireless airborne relay system to “deliver energy into contested environments.” And DARPA is moving toward that goal by awarding a $10 million contract to Virginia-based company Raytheon.

DARPA also wouldn’t mind if that system could harvest energy. If an energy supply could help reduce the military’s dependence on fuel while also shaving down delivery and storage hurdles, that would be great.

“Energy is essential in the modern battlespace, and it is critical to achieving military objectives,” Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon, said in a statement. “When operating in contested environments, energy may not always be available or abundant, making the need to generate, store, and redistribute it vital.”

The company’s Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program is intended to help with DARPA’s Energy Web Dominance portfolio mission—to establish an energy transport across air space, maritime, land, and undersea domains.

Last year, Col. Paul Calhoun—POWER program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office—said in a statement that this concept is the internet for energy. It is intended to harness energy flow from abundant sources and transport it to energy-starved locations. “The military faces particularly acute energy challenges,” he said, “which are driving this innovation. We often must operate far from established energy infrastructure and rely on liquid fuels that require precarious supply lines.”

Beaming power uses the same physics as wireless communication. “You need a power source,” Calhoun explained, “you convert that power to a propagating wave, typically electromagnetic, send it through free space, collect it in through an aperture, and then convert it back to electricity.”

That’s wireless energy transfer.

The Raytheon plan centers on unmanned aircraft at high altitudes capable of serving as relay vessels, intended to receive and transmit beamed energy. Power would be beamed to the aircraft from the ground, allowing the webbed system of planes to then relay the energy over long distances. That energy could then theoretically be used for recharging airborne planes, powering ships in the sea, or fulfilling additional energy needs on the ground.

“This technology seeks to enable our military to generate power where it is safe and efficient to do so and easily distribute it to other platforms,” Whelan said.

The government is looking to eventually be able to reroute energy in seconds or minutes, allowing a near-instantaneous pivot of strategies without requiring cumbersome changes to supply lines. In essence, they want ‘energy web dominance.’

Raytheon, which will work on the two-year contract in El Segundo, California, has long been a partner with the military. They’ve worked on air and missile defense, smart weapons, radars, cybersecurity, and space-based systems. But now, they’re entering a relatively new frontier. Creating a military-level wireless energy web system would push forward the emerging world of wireless energy.

The POWER program aims to make the power beaming relays efficient, maximizing beam quality and harvesting energy along the way. “It is a three-phase development effort,” Calhoun said, “culminating in a compelling energy relay flight demonstration.”

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