Comment by blacksmith_tb
2 years ago
Pretty cool, though my take is that if it's recharging just from induction it's essentially stealing the electricity... I suppose if the owners of the lines want to have autonomous drones monitor their status, that's not stealing, but if you wanted to release some little flying vampire drones of your own which could run indefinitely that way, someone might be less amused.
It's odd that people in the comments assume use without permission and stealing.
You wouldn't attempt any of this without permission, regulatory approval and insurance, unless you wanted to be sued, prosecuted and go broke if something went wrong. How do people think the real world operates exactly?
Oh but the scenario where the drone does it without permission is just way more entertaining.
Three-quarters of a megavolt of electricity plus drones does seem like a lively mix.
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Imagine a future in which the power company manages drones that destroy the electronic barnacles on their lines.
For this public demonstration, sure.
I’m curious how you think power companies are supposed to be aware of entities leeching off transmission lines?
America does everything via a combination of insurance and lawsuits and regulations.
If people are doing this at any appreciable scale, the penalties for being caught will get ratcheted up until it's not worth it.
You only have to ruin a relatively small number of lives before people mostly choose to do what you want.
driving drunk is illegal as shit too, but you can't be naive enough to believe that's enough to stop people from doing that. If you had a drone and wanted to see if this worked, you'd just drive 50 miles from your house and just... try it out. The US isn't yet covered with surveillance cameras like the UK.
Have you met Silicon Valley?
> How do people think the real world operates exactly?
uh.. "Move fast and break things" and "It's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission" come to mind.
Bro, "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" is a pretty common saying in business circles. A lot of enormous businesses, such as Uber or AirBnB, were founded completely on operating without permission, regulatory approval, or insurance, until those things were absolutely forced upon them, and even then they didn't always comply with the law. It's also common that companies assume they will be sued, and go ahead anyway because they know they'll make more money than they'll be sued for. And if you do get sued... there's a good chance you can just never pay up, which I'm seeing more and more often.
The real world is certainly not your optimistic "corporations won't do anything wrong because they're afraid they'll get in trouble".
Skirting regulations and stealing from another megacorp in the open are somewhat different I think.
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I was trying to figure out exactly how it charges with just 1 pole. It must be induction in that case, right?
From the video description:
> A passively actuated gripping mechanism grasps the powerline cable during landing after which a control circuit regulates the magnetic field inside a split-core current transformer to provide sufficient holding force as well as battery recharging.
When the grippers close they probably close the loops of a coil that wraps around the wire. So it's harvesting the ever changing magnetic field that arises from AC current, independent of voltage. You can still get some power from coils that aren't wrapped around the wire but are still parallel. I think that's how wireless phone chargers work.
You can also take power using a capacitor instead of an inductor, from the changing voltage (not current) in an AC line. Like when you hold a florescent tube vertical under a hi-power line, and it lights up.
That is induction though. Acapacitor alone can not extract energy from a ac line. Inductance is what allows energy transfer here.
It could have a small spool of wire to drop to the ground to make contact. This would allow the drone to rest on the wire while charging.
This would vaporize the drone, the wire, and anyone or anything nearby, sending flaming battery and electronics shrapnel in many directions. High tension does not mess around.
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That is exactly opposite of what would keep the drone safe. In a power transmission network the earth is a conductive path. Touching a phase and touching earth allows the grid to push as much power through you as your impedance and grpund contact will allow.
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If it can make contact with the ground it should be able to charge from the static field.
https://makezine.com/article/craft/1000-fluorescent-lights-p...
The link below is a video showing the explosion that would occur if someone attempted what you are describing.
https://youtu.be/LCRfYIwFbxQ
If that can be measured, I would be pretty surprised.
I would project that the drain from all possible drone charging is orders of magnitude less than the e.g. coronal loss or the static radiation that blasts my ham radio.
Any legal action would need to be able to document that loss, one would think.
But you agree the loss exists, right? It's simply difficult to detect from some aggregate noisy flow at a centralized location, because the system was never designed to make that easily measurable.
The amount could be estimated by looking at how much flying the drones do between charges, or by suing for access to charging/position telemetry of the units.
If the drones could meter their own consumption from the line using a utility-approved meter, anyone with a drone with said meter should be able to just tap onto lines at will and get a bill at the end of the month.
Not sure how that plays out in terms of the weight/packaging of the drone but seems feasible for at least larger drones.
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I would argue that it is less than an order of magnitude smaller than the coronal discharge or other losses.
I suspect we are talking about 24 watts as compared to eg 1000 megawatt 500kv line. This is seven orders of magnitude difference. Totally lost in the noise.
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right now the loss does not exist. Its a cool experiment. If this was a big thing the drone fleet operators would simply get some kind of legal agreement with the transmission operator. But overall we are talking about really small amounts of energy.
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This video would probably suffice to document the loss, assuming the recharging was done without the utility's permission.
This could become a major power draw over decades. It's probably time to figure out a protocol. E.g. a cheap light small low power meter on the drone that can post the transaction to the electric company while in flight, signals to designate power lines as in or out of the system and their current price, etc. Solar roof owners could compete with the utilities. There are unicorns hiding in this forest.
The vampires will be the charging drones that aren't associated with a transaction. So it's about as enforceable as a requirement that drones have accurate identifier transponders.
If I was the power distribution owner I would not trust the drone meters. Probably would need some type of load profiling on the distribution side, then all the drone has to do is authenticate a valid customer id for billing.
> If I was the power distribution owner I would not trust the drone meters.
Understandable.
> then all the drone has to do is authenticate a valid customer id for billing
I mean you can ask for anything, but how do you police it? If the drone is by a recognisable entity doing legitimate things sure you can fine them if they don’t comply. But what do you do with literal fly-by-night operators?
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Who cares? If they don’t want their power drawn they need to be burying their powerlines anyway.
Cost of undergrounding power lines is large. Especially over the distribution network (in that there is a lot more of it over space)
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Alternatively
Who cares? If they don’t want their oil siphoned they need to be burying their pipelines anyway.
Most would agree that unauthorized draws from common infrastructure resulting in loss is theft.
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In which case the earth itself can steal the power, in addition to making your electric bill 500 times higher from the capital cost required to bury millions of miles of transmission network.
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Power company can install a mesh or net over lines, to prevent sitting on them, or use another drone to inspect lines and direct a man with a shotgun.
I don't think you know how infinitesimal the amount of power would be. Assuming a Mavic Mini traveling at its maximum speed of 29 miles per hour, it could cross the continental united states in 99 hours for 36 cents worth of electricity.
~2kwh of electricity is around 160 aH at 12V, surely the Mini is more than 20W power at top speed?
Yeah, it’s easier to use lab test data from Mavic Mini 3 specs: 51 minutes flight time at 21kph [0]. The battery capacity is 28.4Wh [1]. So, 18.4/(21*51/60) = 1.6 Wh/km. Assuming US is 2800 miles (4500 km) wide, we get 7.2 kWh of energy under ideal conditions, without accounting for charging efficiency and the impact of the charging system weight on flight time.
Edit: 21kph is the optimal speed for max flight time but not for the best energy efficiency per km. Most efficient speed is somewhere between that and the top speed. But this is the right order of magnitude at least.
[0] https://mavicpilots.com/threads/mini-3-51-minute-flight-time...
[1] https://forum.dji.com/thread-291222-1-1.html
Armed forces don't care. Get it? The likeliest user of this technology will be armed forces.
The biggest use case for this would be inspecting the powerlines, so presumably not stealing in that case.
Second is spy drones.
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More likely it’ll be utility companies that want to do remote and autonomous inspection of the transmission network. It’s already a big business, but if you can run the drone the entire length of the line without relocating the base as frequently, or have no base at all and transmit data over 5G? Big wins.
Right. Drones for power line inspection are common. Far easier than inspections involving bucket trucks, helicopters, or even people on the ground with binoculars. This will simplify that process. Especially for lines through rugged country, where following the line is difficult. Start the drone where the power line crosses a road, and then drive to another road crossing for pickup.
Warning lights for aircraft which clamp onto power lines have been available for many years.[1]
[1] https://clampco.it/obstruction-light-low-intensity-type-b-se...
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There probably are exemptions for emergency or defense applications.