According to DARPA, the breakthrough marks a significant step in developing long-range, wireless energy solutions for defense and other critical applications.
“It is beyond a doubt that we obliterated all previously reported optical power beaming demonstrations for power and distance,” said Paul Jaffe, Program Manager of POWER, in a statement.
Laser power breakthrough
Military operations rely heavily on energy, but delivering it to remote locations like battlefields or disaster zones is often slow, risky, and resource-intensive.
In a significant test for the POWER program, researchers successfully demonstrated a ground-based laser power transmission system known as the POWER Receiver Array Demo (PRAD). The test focused on beaming energy through the densest part of the atmosphere—a major technical challenge—and still managed to set new records in power and distance.