A technological breakthrough around wireless power supply for drones is pushing the concept of "infinite battery life" from the laboratory to practical applications. As relevant solutions continue to mature, drones are expected to get rid of the restriction of having to return home regularly for recharging when performing high-risk or long-term missions in the future.
At present, the industry is focusing on exploring two technical paths, one of which is far-field wireless power supply based on electromagnetic waves. As early as 2021, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded University of Texas scholar Dr. Ifana Mahbub with US$750,000 to develop a far-field electromagnetic wave transmission system that can accurately align and charge aerial drones under line-of-sight conditions. In 2025, she founded the company KinetixBeam, which focuses on developing long-distance wireless power supply systems using phased arrays, reconfigurable metasurface lenses, and conformable rectennas, targeting the remote charging needs of platforms such as drones.
Another technical route is laser-based optical wireless energy transmission, also led by DARPA. The agency tested a system called the Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) in New Mexico. Through a specially designed transmitter and a receiver developed by Teravec Technologies, it successfully transmitted 800 watts of power with a laser over a distance of 5.3 miles (about 8.6 kilometers), setting a new record for the long-distance transmission of optical energy. This solution is regarded as a scalable technology and is expected to be integrated into UAV platforms in the future, but the current verification is still based on ground equipment.
Further along in the industrialization process is PowerLight Technologies, an engineering company headquartered in Kent, Washington. This company has been deeply involved in the field of laser power supply for nearly 20 years. In December last year, it announced that the power transmission system it developed had successfully transmitted kilowatt-level power wirelessly to a drone flying at an altitude of about 5,000 feet in actual testing. It also stated that its invisible laser beam can stably transmit energy over a kilometer-level distance.
To achieve this goal, PowerLight has created a deployable, maneuverable ground-based laser launch system equipped with the ability to track and lock on aerial drones in real time, while integrating multiple safety mechanisms and real-time control and monitoring modules. This means that the transmitter can be placed or towed to the optimal position to continuously charge the drone cruising above. In its tests, PowerLight used a new receiver, which weighs about 2.7 kilograms, mounted on a Kraus Hamdani Aerospace long-endurance electric drone K1000ULE, which is used by the U.S. Navy and Army.
From a technical perspective, PowerLight's system will first convert the electrical energy in the battery into high-intensity light, and then use the beam shaping optical component to shoot it to the receiving device on the drone in the form of an invisible laser beam. The receiving end relies on the photovoltaic cell array to convert light energy into electrical energy to charge the drone's onboard system and battery. The company said that its transmitting and receiving subsystems have entered the final verification stage and will conduct integrated flight tests of the entire system based on the K1000ULE this year.
Once these technologies mature and are put into actual combat applications, the capabilities of high-endurance drones in military reconnaissance, search and rescue missions, oil and gas pipeline inspections and other fields will be significantly improved and will no longer be strictly "tethered" to battery capacity. In urban environments, wireless power supply is also expected to support drones to perform tasks such as traffic management and air quality monitoring for longer periods of time, thereby providing new data and service support for urban operations without increasing the burden on ground infrastructure.