 | |
| Company type | Engineering |
|---|---|
| Genre | Lasers |
| Predecessor | LaserMotive |
| Founded | 1 January 2007  |
| Founder | Tom Nugent and Jordin Kare |
| Headquarters | Kent, Washington |
| Website | powerlighttech |
PowerLight Technologies is an American engineering firm providing power transmission via lasers. Its primary products are power-over-fiber which transmits energy in the form of laser light through an optic fiber, and "laser power beaming" in which the laser energy is transmitted through free space.
The predecessor to PowerLight Technologies, LaserMotive, was founded in 2006 by physicists Tom Nugent and Jordin Kare. [1] [2] The company's initial goal was to win the NASA Centennial Challenges Power Beam challenge. After winning the challenge, LaserMotive focused on developing the power beaming technology for commercial application on UAVs and successfully demonstrated the transfer of 400 watts of power over 1 kilometer. [3]
In 2017, LaserMotive changed its name to PowerLight Technologies, hired three new advisors, and officially announced the launch of commercial applications for its power-over-fiber technology. [4] The company's new CEO Richard Gustoffson described this new focus on power-over-fiber as a "major transformation" for the company. [5] PowerLight also continues to work toward commercial application of its technology to free-space power transmission.
The power beaming system uses a laser running from a power supply. To define the beam size at its destination, the laser's light can be shaped by a set of optics. This light energy can be sent through air or the vacuum of space, onto a photovoltaic (PV) receiver, where it is converted back into electricity. [6]
In addition to delivering energy through air or space, PowerLight adapted the technology to deliver electricity through an optical fiber. [7] By transmitting a focused laser light through optical fiber to a solar cell-like receiver, this technology allows for power to be provided over hundreds of meters in environments where electric transmission by copper wire is not optimal, either due to the higher weight of wire compared to glass fiber, or due to operational constraints imposed by electromagnetic fields generated by electrical transmission by wire. Uses include ground, air, and underwater applications.
The electrical-to-optical conversion efficiency of modern laser technology can be as high as 85%, [8] and off-the-shelf semiconductor diode lasers can have an output efficiency of around 50%. [9] The optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency of a photovoltaic receiver can be over 50% for monochromatic (or laser) light. [10]
PowerLight Technologies has investigated numerous applications for its laser power beaming technology, including transmission of power both to and from the ground, spacecraft, aerial vehicles, satellites, and a lunar rover. [11]
The company's stated first goal was to win the Beam Power Challenge, part of the Space Elevator Games, to power a small climber up a vertical tether. They partnered with The Boeing Company, which provided them with test facilities, as well as specialized solar cells. [12] In 2007, they failed to qualify for the Challenge due to difficulties meeting NASA's specifications. [13] [14]
At the 2009 Challenge, on November 6, 2009, LaserMotive successfully used lasers to drive a 4.8 kg (11 lb) device up a 900 m (2,950 ft) cable suspended from a helicopter. [15] [16] Energy is transmitted to the climber using a high-power infrared beam. [17] LaserMotive's entry, which was the only one to top the cable, reached an average speed of 13 km/h (8.1 mph) and earned a $900,000 prize. This marked both a performance record, and the first award of a cash prize at the Challenge. [16]
On October 28, 2010, PowerLight set a flight endurance record at the Future of Flight Center by powering a quadcopter UAV for more than 12 hours using infrared semiconductor diode lasers to power a small photovoltaic array. [18] The vehicle was equipped with a small on-board battery capable of only a few minutes of flight.
On August 7, 2012, PowerLight equipped a Lockheed Martin Stalker UAS with a laser receiver, and the system was successfully demonstrated during day and night operations in the desert. This series of demonstration flights is described as "the first-ever outdoor flight of a UAS powered by laser". [19] [20]
Beam-powered propulsion, also known as directed energy propulsion, is a class of aircraft or spacecraft propulsion that uses energy beamed to the spacecraft from a remote power plant to provide energy. The beam is typically either a microwave or a laser beam, and it is either pulsed or continuous. A continuous beam lends itself to thermal rockets, photonic thrusters, and light sails. In contrast, a pulsed beam lends itself to ablative thrusters and pulse detonation engines.
A transmission medium is a system or substance that can mediate the propagation of signals for the purposes of telecommunication. Signals are typically imposed on a wave of some kind suitable for the chosen medium. For example, data can modulate sound, and a transmission medium for sounds may be air, but solids and liquids may also act as the transmission medium. Vacuum or air constitutes a good transmission medium for electromagnetic waves such as light and radio waves. While a material substance is not required for electromagnetic waves to propagate, such waves are usually affected by the transmission media they pass through, for instance, by absorption or reflection or refraction at the interfaces between media. Technical devices can therefore be employed to transmit or guide waves. Thus, an optical fiber or a copper cable is used as transmission media.
Free-space optical communication (FSO) is an optical communication technology that uses light propagating in free space to wirelessly transmit data for telecommunications or computer networking. "Free space" means air, outer space, vacuum, or something similar. This contrasts with using solids such as optical fiber cable.
A laser diode is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a diode pumped directly with electrical current can create lasing conditions at the diode's junction.
Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date back several millennia, while the earliest electrical device created to do so was the photophone, invented in 1880.
Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Photonics is closely related to quantum electronics, where quantum electronics deals with the theoretical part of it while photonics deal with its engineering applications. Though covering all light's technical applications over the whole spectrum, most photonic applications are in the range of visible and near-infrared light. The term photonics developed as an outgrowth of the first practical semiconductor light emitters invented in the early 1960s and optical fibers developed in the 1970s.
A rectenna is a special type of receiving antenna that is used for converting electromagnetic energy into direct current (DC) electricity. They are used in wireless power transmission systems that transmit power by radio waves. A simple rectenna element consists of a dipole antenna with a diode connected across the dipole elements. The diode rectifies the AC induced in the antenna by the microwaves, to produce DC power, which powers a load connected across the diode. Schottky diodes are usually used because they have the lowest voltage drop and highest speed and therefore have the lowest power losses due to conduction and switching. Large rectennas consist of arrays of many power receiving elements such as dipole antennas.
The Centennial Challenges are NASA space competition inducement prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams.
Laser propulsion is a form of beam-powered propulsion where the energy source is a remote laser system and separate from the reaction mass. This form of propulsion differs from a conventional chemical rocket where both energy and reaction mass come from the solid or liquid propellants carried on board the vehicle.
Wireless power transfer (WPT), wireless power transmission, wireless energy transmission (WET), or electromagnetic power transfer is the transmission of electrical energy without wires as a physical link. In a wireless power transmission system, an electrically powered transmitter device generates a time-varying electromagnetic field that transmits power across space to a receiver device; the receiver device extracts power from the field and supplies it to an electrical load. The technology of wireless power transmission can eliminate the use of the wires and batteries, thereby increasing the mobility, convenience, and safety of an electronic device for all users. Wireless power transfer is useful to power electrical devices where interconnecting wires are inconvenient, hazardous, or are not possible.
An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are immune to electromagnetic interference. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, such as fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.
Jordin T. Kare was a physicist and aerospace engineer who researched laser propulsion. He was responsible for Mockingbird, a conceptual design for an extremely small reusable launch vehicle, and was involved in the Clementine lunar mapping mission. Kare also conceived the SailBeam interstellar propulsion technique. In the science fiction fan community, he was a composer, performer and recording artist of filk music.
Space-based solar power is the concept of collecting solar power in outer space with solar power satellites (SPS) and distributing it to Earth. Its advantages include a higher collection of energy due to the lack of reflection and absorption by the atmosphere, the possibility of very little night, and a better ability to orient to face the Sun. Space-based solar power systems convert sunlight to some other form of energy which can be transmitted through the atmosphere to receivers on the Earth's surface.
Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared or visible light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is preferred over electrical cabling when high bandwidth, long distance, or immunity to electromagnetic interference is required. This type of communication can transmit voice, video, and telemetry through local area networks or across long distances.
Elevator:2010 was an inducement prize contest with the purpose of developing space elevator and space elevator-related technologies. Elevator:2010 organized annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems, and was operated by a partnership between Spaceward Foundation and the NASA Centennial Challenges.
Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) is a spacecraft communication instrument developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that was tested on the International Space Station (ISS) from 18 April 2014 to 17 July 2014 to demonstrate the technology for laser communications systems between spacecraft and ground stations.
A space elevator is a theoretical system using a super-strong ribbon going from the surface of the Earth to a point beyond Geosynchronous orbit. The center of gravity of the ribbon would be exactly in geosynchronous orbit, so that the ribbon would always stay above the anchor point. Vehicles would climb the ribbon powered by a beam of energy projected from the surface of the Earth. Building a space elevator requires materials and techniques that do not currently exist. A variety of Space Elevator competitions have been held in order to stimulate the development of such materials and techniques.
Optical wireless communications (OWC) is a form of optical communication in which unguided visible, infrared (IR), or ultraviolet (UV) light is used to carry a signal. It is generally used in short-range communication.
Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) is a laser space communication system in operation that improved communications performance 10 to 100 times over radio frequency technology without incurring increases in mass, volume or power. DSOC is capable of providing high bandwidth downlinks from beyond cislunar space.
The Kent, Wash.-based company was founded a decade ago and first made its mark at NASA's Power Beaming Challenge in 2009 as the winner of a $900,000 prize. Back then, LaserMotive used laser beams to transmit power to a cable-climbing robot. After several years of behind-the-scenes work, PowerLight is now working with commercial and military customers to perfect a system that can transmit power in the form of laser light to underwater robotic vehicles, drones in the air, and industrial installations on the ground.
the system starts with a laser running from a power supply, with the laser light shaped by a set of optics to define the beam size at its destination. This light then propagates through air or the vacuum of space until it reaches the photovoltaic (PV) receiver. This array of PV cells then converts the light back into electricity. Laser Power Beaming only requires physical installations at the transmitting and receiving points, and nothing in between. The receiver can be moved to a different location, closer or further away, without changing the cost of the system. And power can be available as soon as the elements are placed and turned on, instead of having to wait for wires to be buried or hung from poles.
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