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Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
This is a really cool DIY project:
(Drones refuel (recharge) in midair)
Lest you think that this is only the dream of talented amateurs, consider the power beaming technology touted by Powerlight Technologyies, which delivers power from the ground to flying drones.
As far as true drone-to-drone (D2D) recharging is concerned, a 2024 paper D2DC: Mid - Air Drone- to- Drone Charging to Enhance Flight Endurance describes a
...novel mid-air Drone-to-Drone (D2D) energy-sharing paradigm, a scalable and cost-effective solution to increase the overall flight endurance of a UAV swarm. This framework allows the UAVs to share charge and sustain each other based on the instructions received from a centralized controller.
I have to reference this with an accurate prediction by Neal Stephenson in the Diamond Age - namely, his nurse drone:
Enough wrestling with the wind, and a pod's battery would run down. Then it would swim over and nuzzle its neighbor. The two would mate in midair, like dragonflies, and the weaker would take power from the stronger. The system included larger aerostats called nurse drones...
However, I am secretly thinking of the amazing Air-Freighter Cargo Plane from Ed Earl Repp's 1929 classic The Invisible Raiders:
Like sparrows attacking an eagle, the ships, which would have been invisible to the naked eye, hovered for an instant over the broad aerofoils of the unsuspecting freighter. Suddenly as one, a number of them settled on the Jupiter’s expansive wings!
(Enormous air-freighter airplane for cargo)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/9/2025)
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I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.
