A 'Vampire Drone' can fly forever 

Could you go into a lot more detail? What are your specific concerns?

Well, for example why would the average user wait for their drone to charge somewhere inaccessible instead of just changing out the battery and immediately continuing. And the inaccessible and possibly out of sight bit has a lot of ways to end badly. The entire concept seems poorly thought out. If a drone has to remain within a radius of the controller I cant imagine why they would think that remote charging was a good idea. In a commercial application, time is money.

@@meetim2931 isn't the whole history and evolution of technology a long series of people having creative ideas that build on what came before? Every time you gain new tools and techniques, you have the opportunity to imagine new use cases that nobody has tried before. I promise you that if you ask a room full of engineers to spend an afternoon brainstorming things you could do with drones that can charge up while you sleep, you'll have a hundred ideas before dinner.

@@pjforde1978 I replied to this but the comment never showed up so I'll try again. I agree with the first half of your comment but not the last half. It was never about charging while you sleep, you can do that with your regular drone right now, and its safe in your house. Decentralised charging is no use while control is centralised. A drone hanging on a powerline is a target for vandalism, and changing the battery gets it back in the air a lot faster. I refer back to my first two comments, that its unlikely to be suitable for 'the average user'.

@@meetim2931 I just struggle to understand why you insist that just because you don’t currently know how a technique or technology could be used, that for some reason in defiance of the history of innovation you are convinced that this particular technique cannot possibly have a positive or interesting use case. Reminds me of how they created television before there was any content for it, even though people had been staging perfectly good plays for centuries.

Fk yeah 🤘

Lol the noise

It inductively couples to the transmission line. Basically the drone has a transformer, and that's used to charge the drone from the power line.

@@techbricks5300 No. The drone does not need a ground connection like a tram. The drone puts a transformer around the power line and inductively couples to the power line.

Scaled OP like Amazon would def be a problem. If this hits a mainstream enterprise use case like that, I smell a lawsuit. "Amazon vs US dept of Energy"

Hahaha no clue

This certainly isn't US specific. Power companies aren't going to want to give away electricity for free - and there doesn't seem like there would be any real way to meter devices charging this way.

@@huffy7412 Yah and the high power lines balance current phases between lines they wouldn't want upset.

This is post FAA regulation era + new technology that bypasses vast infrastructure requirements. It's emerging tech that will strengthen a fleet. Not here to hype old shit.

Hey, Elmer's glue is non-toxic!

Tactically you are correct, but logistically not having to invest in any infrastructure to deploy a drone fleet is a huge win for the vampire design.

@@cotalk agreed you'd save some land costs, but not you need a high voltage inverter per drone rather than potentially a single one serving many. I suspect the costs overall wouldn't be too different, just the service model changes.

@@StevenJonSmith this is why people hire accountants hahaha when you put it that way, its a toss up - in favor of 'charging stations' on a longer timeline. Perhaps leveraging vampire drones temporarily, then phase them out when a permanent infrastructure is built in each service zone. That would be good for quick wins while also providing a long term solution.

Massive cost

How to get ROI from free charging off the road (unless taxes pay for it)? We've seen the economics of Toll roads and that's minus any technology added to them. Wonderful idea on paper though.