LaserMotive Laser-Powered Helicopter Sets Flight Record

Cosmic Log - Copter sets a laser-powered record

A pint-sized helicopter that gets its energy from a laser beam ran for more than 12 hours straight overnight, breaking an endurance record for laser-powered hovering.

Collected from: Cosmic Log - Copter sets a laser-powered record

Powered only by lasers, hovering drone flies for twelve hours straight - SmartPlanet

LaserMotive’s technology is fundamentally like a typical solar panel system. The laser beam is captured and focused onto a photovoltaic panel by a series of mirrors. As with many other solar devices, the Pelican has a small reserve battery, just in case the laser is obstructed for a short time. The main difference? This solar power is concentrated and directed, and has a massive potential range.

Here’s a video of the Pelican in action:

Collected from: Powered only by lasers, hovering drone flies for twelve hours straight - SmartPlanet

Oct 20, 2010 09:00 ET

LaserMotive to Demonstrate Laser-Powered Helicopter at Future of Flight Aviation Center; Will Mark Longest Duration Untethered Laser Powered Helicopter Flight on Record

"The demonstration will mark our first public display of a free-flying unmanned aerial vehicle powered by lasers, and represents an important step forward in the future development of flight," Tom Nugent, President and Co-founder of LaserMotive. "As such, we feel that the Future of Flight is the perfect place to hold this groundbreaking demo."

"We are very pleased to host this record breaking event, which could genuinely impact the future of flight," said Barry Smith, Executive Director of the Future of Flight Foundation. "For us, the innovation behind the technology is what makes this project so meaningful and we applaud LaserMotive's achievements as the leader in the field of beamed power."

Collected from: LaserMotive to Demonstrate Laser-Powered Helicopter at Future of Flight Aviation Center; Will Mark Longest Duration Untethered Laser Powered Helicopter Flight on Record

Watch "LaserMotive Laser Power Beaming for UAVs" Video at Engineering TV

Collected from: Watch "LaserMotive Laser Power Beaming for UAVs" Video at Engineering TV

Sources

Cosmic Log - Copter sets a laser-powered record

Powered only by lasers, hovering drone flies for twelve hours straight - SmartPlanet

YouTube - Laser helicopter

LaserMotive to Demonstrate Laser-Powered Helicopter at Future of Flight Aviation Center; Will Mark Longest Duration Untethered Laser Powered Helicopter Flight on Record

Watch "LaserMotive Laser Power Beaming for UAVs" Video at Engineering TV

Related

Laser-powered quadrocopter stays aloft for 12 hours | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

Video: LaserMotive's Laser-Powered Quadrocopter Hovers for 12 Hours Straight | Popular Science

Record-breaking laser helicopter stays aloft for 12 hours

Laser-Powered Helicopter Breaks World Record | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Welcome to Laser Motive

Home | Ascending Technologies

ELI - Extreme Light Infrastructure - Ultra High Power Lasers

Physics Buzz: Lasers reaching their limit

Somebody is going to have to break the news to Darth Vader. His Death Star's planet destroying potential is going to be way behind schedule. Research scheduled to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters shows that lasers are already close to reaching their maximum intensity and that the next generation of lasers currently being developed might be able to reach that limit.

Collected from: Physics Buzz: Lasers reaching their limit

Coming Generation of Lasers May Be the Most Powerful Lasers That Will Ever Lase

The theoretical energy ceiling for lasers is approaching

Construction Worker in Laser Target Chamber at National Ignition Facility Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The most powerful lasers now being built, such as the forthcoming Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project underway in Europe, may approach the physical ceiling of laser intensity -- they may turn out to be the most powerful lasers that ever can be built, says a new article on the PhysicsBuzz blog.

That finite limit on how intense a laser can get is hypothesized to exist because, at sufficiently high energies, matter can be created out of light.

Collected from: Coming Generation of Lasers May Be the Most Powerful Lasers That Will Ever Lase | Popular Science

Extreme Light Infrastructure in a few words

A european facility opening new avenues to reveal the secrets of matter on ultra-short timescales

The first infrastructure worldwide dedicated to :

• Investigation of laser-matter interactions in the unexplored ultra-relativistic regime.
• Development of unprecedented intense ultra-short particle and radiation sources for fundamental and applied sciences.

“Physicists are planning lasers powerful enough to rip apart the fabric of space and time”
Nature, 446 (2007)

Collected from: ELI : European Project > Extreme Light Infrastructure

Exotic Physics and Theory

Ultra-high fields of high-power, short-pulse lasers pose very important possibilities for fundamental physics. The main goal of this Research Activity is to explore both theoretically and experimentally the ultra-relativistic (above 1023 W/cm2) regime of laser-matter interaction, called Exotic physics.

[...] In essence, ultra-relativistic intensities could unify nuclear physics, high-energy physics, astrophysics and cosmology.

Apart from these truly exotic research fields, other nonlinear quantum electrodynamics effects could be accessed at slightly modest fields. The ELI community is eager to study such phenomena which consist in converting photon energy directly into creation of electrons and positrons. [...]

Some of the particular QED phenomena that will be studied at ELI are:

1. Electron-positron plasmas
2. Vacuum four-wave mixing
3. Vacuum polarisation
4. Vacuum birefringence
5. Unruh radiation
6. QED cascades: Inverse Compton Scattering
7. Quark-gluon plasmas

Collected from: Exotic Physics and Theory

Sources

Physics Buzz: Lasers reaching their limit
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2010/08/lasers-reaching-their-limit.html
Coming Generation of Lasers May Be the Most Powerful Lasers That Will Ever Lase | Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/next-generation-lasers-may-be-most-powerful-lasers-will-ever-lase
ELI : European Project > Extreme Light Infrastructure
http://www.extreme-light-infrastructure.eu/
Exotic Physics and Theory
http://www.eli-beams.eu/en/vedecke-aktivity-eli/sekundarni-zdroje-pro-mezioborove-aplikace/exoticka-fyzika-a-teorie-vyzkumna-aktivita-6/

Related

LASERLAB Europe Transnational Access Programme
http://www.eli-beams.eu/laserlab-europe-transnational-access-programme/
ELI project > Extreme Light Infrastructure
http://www.extreme-light-infrastructure.eu/what-is-eli.php?PHPSESSID=51933186a5217e2e1a6205ef8ee661ae
ELISAC report
http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.extreme-light-infrastructure.eu/docs/Brochure-and-Communication/ELI-SAC-report-id357.pdf
LASERLAB EUROPE — LASERLAB-EUROPE
http://www.laserlab-europe.net/
The Astronomist: Limits on Lasers
http://theastronomist.fieldofscience.com/2010/08/limits-on-lasers.html

Light Propulsion -- Laser-Propelled Spaceships

clipped from www.livescience.com

Laser-Propelled Spaceships Could Transform Transportation

Beamed Energy Propulsion (BEP) is far more than a dream or idea: It is a powerful enabling technology that will radically transform the future of air and space transportation. It is physics, not imagination.

BEP permits us to build and fly hyper-energetic vehicles driven by remote sources of laser, microwave, and mm-wave power. Such vehicles provide unique performance that would be impossible to achieve with traditional, combustion-based engines. Vehicles driven by BEP will be "greener," safer, smaller, lighter, faster, and far more efficient than any currently existing means of flight transport.

clipped from www.livescience.com

Artist's concept of a spaceship powered by laser light, or Beamed Energy Propulsion (BEP). Credit: Matt Kneght

clipped from science.howstuffworks.com

How Light Propulsion Will Work

Photo courtesy Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
An early model of a laser-propelled lightcraft

The basic idea behind light propulsion is the use of ground-based lasers to heat air to the point that it explodes, propelling the spacecraft forward. If it works, light propulsion will be thousands of times lighter and more efficient than chemical rocket engines, and will produce zero pollution.

Photo courtesy Rensselaer A lightcraft in action. The bright light you see is the air combusting under the rim of the craft.

clipped from science.howstuffworks.com

As the laser pulses, it superheats the air until it combusts. Each time the air combusts, it creates a flash of light, as seen in this photo of a test flight.

A company called Lightcraft Technologies continues to refine the research that began at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

clipped from www.lightcrafttechnologies.com

clipped from www.youtube.com

Laser Pumped Flying Saucer Spacecraft

clipped from www.youtube.com

RPI Prof Leik Myrabo Lightcraft Research

clipped from www.space.com

clipped from www.space.com

Sources:
Laser-Propelled Spaceships Could Transform Transportation | LiveScience
| LiveScience.com
HowStuffWorks "How Light Propulsion Will Work"
Lightcraft Technologies, Inc.
Lightcraft Technology Incorporated
YouTube - Laser Pumped Flying Saucer Spacecraft
YouTube - RPI Prof Leik Myrabo Lightcraft Research
SPACE.com -- Laser Propulsion: Wild Idea May Finally Shine
Related:
Beam-powered propulsion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Laser-Powered Lightcraft "At the Cusp of Commercial Reality" | Popular Science
Looking to Lasers, Microwaves and Anti-Matter for Space Travel
Lightcraft Technology Incorporated
Lightcraft Flight Handbook by Leik Myrabo and John Lewis An Apogee Books Publication

LightLane -- The Personal Bike Lane

clipped from thedw.us Bike Safety Concept of the Day: LightLane - The Personal Bike Lane. clipped from www.good.is LightLane, a safety concept from the clever designers at Altitude, Inc. The system projects a virtual bike lane (using lasers!) on the ground around the cyclists, providing drivers with a recognizable boundary they can easily avoid. The idea is to allow riders to take safety into their own hands, rather than leaving it to the city. clipped from dustbowl.wordpress.com Light Lane - Concept from Altitude’s Alex Tee and Evan Gant Instead of adapting cycling to established bike lanes, the bike lane should adapt to the cyclists. This is the idea behind the LightLane. Our system projects a crisply defined virtual bike lane onto pavement, using a laser, providing the driver with a familiar boundary to avoid. With a wider margin of safety, bikers will regain their confidence to ride at night, making the bike a more viable commuting alternative.

Related:
The Daily What
GOOD » Superb Idea: Bike Lane That Travels With You»
Light Lane - Concept from Altitude’s Alex Tee and Evan Gant « Dustbowl
Altitude Inc. — A product innovation firm.

El-E: A laser-guided assistive robot (video)

El-E the Robot from Cressel Anderson on Vimeo

EL-E: a robot which chases around the dot made by a laser pointer, and picks up whatever it point at.

clipped from www.hsi.gatech.edu clipped from www.hsi.gatech.edu El-E: An Assistive Robot First, El-E is equipped with a laser pointer interface that detects when a user illuminates a location with an off-the-shelf green laser pointer and estimates its 3D position. This enables a user to unambiguously communicate a 3D location to the robot using a point-and-click style of interaction, which provides a direct way to tell the robot which object to manipulate or where to go.

Related:
Healthcare Robotics Lab - Home