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?
2 Answers
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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:
Static system for conventional systems
- It should stand or hang to line/pole/special place like birds. Please watch video for an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM
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.
