The longer a drone stays in the air, the more useful it is — especially in military applications. The conventional route to greater staying power involves batteries that pack more energy. But are there alternative ways of powering a drone?
Perhaps solar leaps to mind? But, sorry — relying on power from the solar panels on a drone is akin to offering a banana to a hungry elephant.
An American company, PowerLight Technologies, has come up with an intriguing idea: wirelessly transmitting power from the ground to the drone.
The concept is not entirely new, though applying it to drones is novel. Wireless transmission of power has been around for over a century. Nikola Tesla experimented with it. NASA has explored it in the context of beaming power — in the form of microwaves — from solar plants in space that continuously face the sun. The problem, however, is not over feasibility but efficiency. Electromagnetic transmission of power loses energy over long distances; some of it is absorbed by the atmosphere. It cannot, therefore, beat copper on economics.
However, in niche applications — such as powering a drone — it might make sense. At least, PowerLight Technologies believes so.
The company recently tested its “end-to-end laser power beaming system” for UAVs. The system generates an invisible laser beam. A ground transmitter communicates with the drone, tracks its velocity and direction, and delivers the beam to an onboard receiver. The receiver has a converter to turn the laser energy into electricity to charge the onboard batteries.
PowerLight is preparing for fully integrated flight testing in early 2026, says a company statement.
Published on March 9, 2026
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