Tag: drones

These Laser Beams Could Power Military Drones 5,000 Feet in the Air

Posted on by faz_business


When drones run low on battery, they’ll either fly back or just drop out of the air. But a new technology might just allow the drones to recharge while in the air.

In a December 16 press release, Washington-based startup PowerLight Technologies announced it had completed preliminary testing for its end-to-end laser power beaming system for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, combines a high-power transmitter with a lightweight receiver to charge drones remotely.

“This is much more than point-to-point power transfer using a laser; we are building an intelligent mesh energy network capability,” PowerLight CTO Tom Nugent said in the release.

Wireless flight schemes

Installed onboard the aircraft is a receiver weighing roughly 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms) that uses laser power converters to detect lasers and convert them into electricity. An additional control module helps establish communications with a ground station.

Transmitter To Drone Graphics 7 636x1024
Concept drawing of power beaming from ground-based transmitter to UAS-integrated receiver © PowerLight

In the most recent tests, the system successfully transmitted lasers to aircraft flying up to 5,000 feet (1,524 meters), the company said. The components form a “wireless power line” that optically tracks the aircraft and transmits kilowatts of energy to the battery onboard, according to PowerLight.

“Our transmitter communicates with the UAS, tracks its velocity and vector, and delivers energy exactly where it’s needed,” Nugent said. “We have now successfully tested the power transmission and tracking algorithms, validating the core architecture needed for our upcoming flight demonstrations.”

Power beaming technology

The new technology is a part of the Power TRansmitted Over Laser to UAS (PTROL-UAS) program, a Department of Defense initiative to establish such “power beaming” techniques for powering autonomous systems.

Powerlighttech Ground Based Transmitter
PowerLight transmitter during range testing in December 2025. © PowerLight

“A platform that doesn’t need to land to refuel or recharge is one that never blinks,” Fatema Hamdani, CEO of Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, PowerLight’s partner for the project, said in the statement.

This isn’t the first time PowerLight has collaborated with the government. Last year, the startup joined Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin in designing a power beaming system for charging lunar rovers.

As for PTROL-UAS, with the latest tests, Powerlight will commence the first rounds of fully integrated flight testing in early 2026. These trials will demonstrate “infinite flight” capability, the company said.

DJI Mini 5 Pro Review: A Heavier Drone Upgrade

Posted on by faz_business


I enquired about the weight, and a DJI spokesperson sent me the following statement: “The DJI Mini 5 Pro has a design weight of 249.9 grams. Due to manufacturing tolerances, the actual weight of the product may vary slightly within a range of ±4 g. Minor weight fluctuations are normal. We recommend that when UK users are operating the drone, local regulations are complied with, which can be found here.”

The company refers to it as a “near-250g drone”—terminology I’d never encountered from DJI. Frankly, it feels a little evasive. This isn’t just pedantic nitpicking over a few grams. I live in the UK, and the 250-gram threshold determines whether you can fly a drone in public parks, on beaches, in towns and cities, near people, and in countless other scenarios without additional certification. Previous Mini models have been just under this limit, and it seems like an oversight during the design process to not keep this one comfortably below it, too.

There’s good news, though: With UK drone rules set to change at the beginning of 2026, I don’t have too long to wait until the Mini 5 Pro (and, interestingly, the much bigger DJI Air 3S) becomes completely legal to fly in built-up areas, public parks, and close to people.

The tidings for US-based pilots aren’t so cheery, though. As with all of its recent products, DJI isn’t officially launching the Mini 5 Pro in the US. You can blame the impending DJI ban, and it’s a real shame, because, weight issues aside, this is a fantastic camera drone.

Big Camera Upgrades

DJI Mini 5 Pro Review A Heavier Drone Upgrade

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen

The Mini 5 Pro’s slight weight increase comes with genuine benefits. The main improvement is the camera, which now features a 12-MP (or 50 MP in Quad Bayer terms) 1-inch sensor, a significant upgrade from the smaller sensors in previous Mini models. The image quality is edging towards DJI’s Air range, which is remarkable for a drone this size. You’re getting professional-level image quality in a pocketable drone.

A 25-year-old police drone founder just raised $75M led by Index

Posted on by faz_business


If you ever call 911 from an area that’s hard to get to, you might hear the buzz of a drone well before a police cruiser pulls up. And there’s a good chance that it will be one made by Brinc Drones, a Seattle-based startup founded by 25-year-old Blake Resnick, who dropped out of college to run the company.

Brinc, which was founded in 2017 and counts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as a seed-stage investor, just announced today that it has raised $75 million in new funding led by Index Ventures.

This brings the startup’s total funding to $157.2 million. While Brinc isn’t disclosing its exact valuation, Resnick told TechCrunch it’s an “up-round” compared to its most recent round, a $55 million Series B in 2022. Brinc was last valued at $300 million in 2023, Bloomberg reported.

Brinc sells a variety of drone systems to police and public safety agencies. It’s part of a broader trend of U.S. drone startups manufacturing domestically due to increasing restrictions against Chinese companies that dominate the commercial drone industry. (Resnick briefly interned at DJI, by far the biggest Chinese player, a few years before founding Brinc.)

With this funding, Brinc is launching a “strategic alliance” with Motorola Solutions, which also invested in the round. Motorola Solutions is a giant in the U.S. security industry whose software powers many 911 call centers. The partnership will integrate Brinc drones directly into those centers, allowing operators to dispatch drones for certain emergency calls if they’re cleared by an existing Motorola AI system.

Brinc is, however, in an increasingly competitive field with other U.S. startups like Flock Safety and Skydio. Each also offers drones for police, and have multibillion-dollar valuations. Flock stood at $7.5 billion in its latest round last month while Skydio was valued at $2.2 billion in 2023.

When it comes to the competition, Resnick tells TechCrunch that there’s plenty of room for growth in a market that is otherwise dominated by Chinese players. Beyond the Motorola partnership, he says Brinc offers its share of unique features, like the ability to break windows or deliver emergency medical devices.