Off-world Power Generation Research

Working Systems

NASA 2009 Power Beaming Competition

LaserMotive charging an unmanned drone

space elevator, and its power beaming need

• Attempting this challenge requires that the participating teams would excel at laser optics, photovoltaics, electrical and mechanical engineering, and overall system design. The vehicles must be lightweight yet powerful. The laser beams must be well focused while tracking the climbers, and the climbers must be adept at converting them back into electricity and then into mechanical power. If you think this sounds complicated, you're right - out of about 40 teams that tried their hand at the challenge, only 3 made it to the final challenge.

Coupled PV cells and Lasers

Often called Power Over Fiber.

MH GoPower (MHGP) produces a high-performance silicon-based vertical multijunction (VMJ) PV cell that enables high-wattage laser power transmission. See here.

Preliminary test data is shown for a 0.78 cm/sup 2/ VMJ cell with 40 series connected junctions producing 31.8 watts at 25.5 volts at near 2500 suns AM1.5 intensity (40.4 watts per cm/sup 2/ output at 211 watts per cm/sup 2/ input with an estimated efficiency near 20%).

Powerlight has free-space power beaming tech. LaserMotive has previously demonstrated power beaming systems with a receiver-specific power as high as 800 W/kg.

Several vendors

Solar Panels

Why not buy a nice full-sized panel and see what we can collect with it?

330W for $271 ($.78/W)

100W for $115 ($1.15/W) (bought)

Panels and battery setup

Someone used the Renogy panel to charge their RV, "My system consists of the following main components:"

2 - Victron Multiplus 12/3000/120-50
Victron Blue Solar charge controller MPPT 150/85
15 - 100 watt Renogy solar panels
Victron Color control gx
Victron BMV-702 battery monitor
4 - 1000Ah LifePO4 Winston battery cells

Here's 3.3kwhr in a suitcase using "18650"s.

Small Lab Prototyping

We should be able to set up two arduinos or pis, one receiving sun solar to power a laser, and another receiving laser solar to power a battery. We have a lot to learn about basic electrical wiring and arduinos and pis.

A hackster laser morse code transmitter and receiver setup, very useful The laser that was used, very popular, didn't find any others yet

There are lots of competing low-quality solar+battery projects, where's the winner? Still looking...

• this showoff asshole does it all, with pi webserver and arduino to monitor power, but doesn't give many details
• expensive adafruit gear
• might be good but where are the docs?
• work-in-progress but describes pulsed on-then-off to save power

Strong lasers:

• 1-3.5W lasers "world's best" but not avail in US - does not seem to be easy to wire up, but perhaps we could crack it open
• found one! this guy's 3D printer laser hack is amazing, and linked to his laser part let's get it

Other random stuff: 37 mysterious chinese arduino sensors Lidar

Launching Payloads to Space

Rocket Lab’s Electron booster launches small satellites commercially

General Notes

Question: what's the maximum input into a photovoltaic cell? Exposing it to the sun in space will provide what percentage of peak opportunity? Should we employ mirrors or prisms to redirect more sunlight into the PV cells? what would be most cost effective: adding more PV cells or adding redirected/reflected sunlight to existing PV cells?

Wikipedia: Wireless_power_transfer via laser (aka "Power Beaming")

Wikipedia: Space Based Solar Power (SBSP)

Long Range Wireless Power by Wi-Charge demoed at CES 2018 - First wireless power system using lasers for consumer applications. Complies with mandatory IEC 60825 sagfety standards for consumer use.

OEM looking to incorporate wireless power modules into new products? Apply for beta

NASA Armstrong Fact Sheet: Beamed Laser Power for UAVs

Power by Light - blog with working prototypes

Youtube: Wirelessly Powered Train

Youtube: Photovoltaic laser power converters with increased voltage output (27m)

Academic Papers

U.S. Energy Department’s own Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) 2009 proposal (PDF)

energy.gov with Infographic

laser power beaming light-to-electricity conversion efficiency correlates directly between electricity conversion and heat generation - abstract behind paywall

Development and characterisation of laser powerconverters for optical power transfer applications - French paper 2013

Paper: Design and optimization of GaAs photovoltaic converter for laser power beaming

Paper: Photovoltaic laser power converters for wireless optical power supply of sensor systems

Paper: High-Voltage GaAs Photovoltaic Laser Power Converters