Huawei Imagines Cell Towers Wirelessly Charging Drones

[MWC 2017] One of the problems with drones is that typically their battery life leaves a lot to be desired. For consumer drone usage this might not be a problem, but if one is using drones to make site inspections, then this could prove to be very troublesome as it means either bringing along multiple drones, or having to constantly charge them.

However during MWC 2017, Huawei’s X Labs project envisions a future where cell towers could potentially be used to wirelessly charge drones as they fly around them to make site inspections. Granted we don’t expect these towers to fully charge drones or be used as a charging point, but basically the idea is that it will keep the drone constantly juiced up so that the pilot will be able to complete their work and inspection without needing to recharge it.

Of course this will require a fair bit of power and at the moment, wireless charging isn’t quite where it needs to be at the moment. Even our phones with wireless charging still need to be “tethered” to a charging mat, although there are talks about maybe “true” wireless charging could find its way to the iPhone 8 later this year.

In any case it seems that maybe Huawei’s vision for the future is still several years away from being made a reality, but the implications are huge as being able to charge wirelessly off cell towers could be used for more than just drone inspections.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Drones, Huawei, MWC, MWC 2017, wireless charging