Rechargeable Urban UAV

They call it Power Line Urban Sentry. AFRL and Defense Research Associates (DRA, Dayton Ohi0) are exploring the concept of a small, battery-powered, battlefield UAV, rechargeable by power-lines. It would latch on power lines and draw current from them.

It could have important applications. Discreet perch and stare/sensor insertion at forward urban locations. The battery-powered design facilitates silent operation, and researchers (Rick Lind, U FLorida, Center for Morphing Technology) are concerning themselves with methods of disguise. Morphing technologies, pretty interesting!

"He made a small UAV look like a Coke can,"..."One goal of the PLUS program is to create a small UAV that seems to disappear by morphing into a shape that doesn't look out of place on a power line. So Marshall and McKinley asked Lind to join their efforts in 2006.

If the UAV looks "like a coke-can", doesn't it follow the ISR is soda-straw? More likely it will look like a trash-can... well damn, what if it perched like one of those gray cylinders at the top of a standard utility pole?

"An energy-harvesting UAV could be equipped also with multiple sensors. "The idea is that when you're recharging, you have all that power from the line to do whatever you need," McKinley observes."

Really, whatever sensors you need? How much is this expected going to weigh/carry?

What's the timeframe for testing on this? Pretty cool.