Synopsis
Power beaming is the ability to move energy without moving or employing mass between an energy input and energy output. It is an emerging technology that could reshape how we generate and distribute energy and how our devices and autonomous systems are powered. This comprehensive compendium provides the foundation needed for researchers, technology developers, and end users to understand the promise and challenges for power beaming. By establishing a common nomenclature and conceptual approach to the analysis and assessment of power beaming systems, this unique reference text provides a true status of advancements in the field, and lays the groundwork for fruitful future research and applications.
About the Authors
Dr. Paul Jaffe is an electronics engineer and researcher with over 25 years of experience at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). He has led or held major roles on dozens of space missions and on breakthrough technology development projects for civilian, defense, and intelligence community sponsors. He is widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on space solar and power beaming. He has over 50 research and patent publications, frequent international speaking and media appearances, and is the recipient of numerous awards. As principal investigator for the Photovoltaic Radiofrequency Antenna Module (PRAM), he conceived and oversaw the development of the world's first space experiment for solar power satellite conversion module technology in orbit. The experiment was successfully launched and operated in space in 2020 and has returned valuable data to inform future efforts. He was also the champion for the first power beaming STEM demonstration in space, conducted on the International Space Station by Astronaut Jessica Meir. Since 2017, he has taught the graduate course "Introduction to Power Beaming and Space Solar" at the University of Maryland, and he has overseen a portfolio of power beaming and space solar projects for the US Department of Defense since 2019.
Tom Nugent, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of PowerLight Technologies, has been designing, building and testing laser power beaming systems for 15 years, and is acknowledged as one of the top experts in the world on optical wireless power. His work on design, analysis, fabrication and testing has spanned all elements of power beaming systems including lasers, high power optics, receiver tracking, beam steering, photovoltaic power converters, power management and distribution, innovative active laser safety systems, controls, and thermal management. He has degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (BS in Physics) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS in Materials Science and Engineering). He started out working on advanced space propulsion concepts and hardware, including antiproton-catalyzed fission/fusion interplanetary propulsion, space elevator design, and novel liquid fuel rocket engines. Before PowerLight he worked at Intellectual Ventures Labs on a variety of R&D projects including the Photonic Fence project that used lasers to kill mosquitoes for malaria control. He is inventor or co-inventor on more than 60 issued US patents, numerous foreign patents, and more than 12 pending patent applications. He's been an invited speaker at multiple DEPS, OWPT, and OSA conferences.
Dr. Bernd Strassner II received the BS degree in electrical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, in 1995, and the MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, in 1997 and 2002, respectively. From 1996 to 1997, he was with Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, where he was involved with the study on how harmonic load-pull terminations improve power-amplifier performance. From 1998 to 2002, he was a Research Assistant at Texas A&M University's Electromagnetics Laboratory, where his work focused on passive-backscatter RFID tags for tracking pipe in oil drill strings, rectifying antenna arrays for microwave power reception, and reflecting antenna arrays for space platforms. In July of 2002, after completing his doctoral thesis work, Bernd returned to Sandia National Laboratories and joined their remote sensing group. For the last twenty years, he has designed a variety of wideband antenna arrays and unique radiating elements for synthetic-aperture radar and other novel communication systems. He has authored numerous journal papers and book chapters on microwave power transmission and rectifying antennas. His primary contribution in the field has been the integration of circular polarization into efficient rectifying antenna array designs. He currently resides in Albuquerque, NM with his wife and four children.
Mitchel Szazynski is an engineer, entrepreneur, and author of both fiction and non-fiction, with experience developing products in the Aerospace, Materials Handling, Consumer Electronics, and Diagnostics industries. He is the inventor of a novel, low-cost variable power divider-based feeding architecture for phased array antennas, and co-inventor of a piezoelectric-based device for renewable energy generation. His master's thesis on microwave power beaming and phased arrays was published through Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in 2018.
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