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Is there a way to convert the EM field that surrounds high voltage power lines for direct usable electricity for air or ground drones for continuous flight or travel?

Added: Yes could the EM field be used for a guide as well?

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/280558/can-high-voltage-power-lines-provide-a-super-highway-for-drones

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2 Answers 2

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Sure, a drone can land on a powerline. That's a standard task like the "peg in hole problem" for robotarms. The aim is to maneuver a UAV near to a highvoltage line and eating all the energy. The earliest paper was written in 2009 and has a nice plotchart of the Electro-Magnetic Field on page 8 Powerline perching with a fixed-wing UAV for directing the UAV in 2D space.

A little bit more tricky is the question of how to program such a device, that it can lands autonomously. A behaviortree which is implemented as a Python thread would be a good starting point. Some routines for goalfinding, fallback handling and number of trials has to be implemented.

In pseudocode the landing procedure is:

class BehaviortreePerching():
  def __init__(self):
    pass
  def BTstart(self):
    t = threading.Thread(target=self.taskmain)
    t.start()
  def taskmain(self):
    if self.landing()==success: self.harvesting()
    else self.retry()
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I think yes it can but how? My options are here:

  1. Static system for conventional systems

  2. Dynamic system

    • Harmless/secure distance present day wireless charging methods: use low energy harvesting drone or an alternative design like blimp-drone and use wireless charging along the line.
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