'Vampire drone' can leech electricity from power lines to live forever

https://bgr.com/tech/revolutionary-new-drone-feeds-on-electricity-from-power-lines-and-flies-forever/

by Eduard • 2 years ago

80 34 2 years ago

htrp• 2 years ago

You can see the vampire drone in action in the video above. It’s actually a cool design, and a far cry from the concerning AI attack drones we’ve seen other engineers putting together.

If you can recognize, attach, and leech from the power line, you can probably also attack the power line

tetris11• 2 years ago

Gives new meaning to the term "drop bears"

hu32• 2 years ago

Scary.

A swarm of these drones could disable the powerlines of an entire country in a war situation.

bonton89• 2 years ago

I think their ability to remain functional indefinitely in populated enemy territory without a support network and increased attack range are the broader implications here. But yeah, you probably could have them all get into position and blow all lines at once using the range and loitering ability this affords.

0cf8612b2e1e• 2 years ago

You do not need sophisticated methods to shutdown the power grid. There have been a few recent stories about some jerk shooting an electrical substation, taking down power for thousands of people. The grid backbone is enormous and impossible to secure.

Just drive a truck into a few key transformers or backbone connections could probably cut power for millions.

Here is one story (https://www.npr.org/2022/12/05/1140775417/north-carolina-sub...) where (probably) single gunman disrupted power for 100,000 people.

gravescale4• 2 years ago

The US already used graphite bombs to disable 85% of the Iraqi electrical system in the 90s. Drones that autonomously target anything with insulator discs on it would make it rather cheaper, though.

It's still probably a war crime to target civilian infrastructure, however, so either win or deny using the drones and blame saboteurs now that the drones are cheap enough to reasonably suggest guerilla usage is possible.

bguebert• 2 years ago

Yeah, its weird how they think this wouldn't be used for attack drones. Seems like extending the range would be a pretty big combat advantage. Pair this with facial recognition and you'd have assassin bots that could be launched countries away and still find their targets.

chrisjj3• 2 years ago

False title. The correct one is "Revolutionary new drone feeds on electricity from power lines and flies forever".

Tomte• 2 years ago

The title tag disagrees. And that's what for example the HN bookmarklet uses.

chrisjj3• 2 years ago

The title tag disagrees.

I'd say the title tag fails to accord.

And that's what for example the HN bookmarklet uses.

Probably not a great idea, given everyone sees the article title but only a minority see the page title.

tiagod• 2 years ago

Publications very often A/B test titles on the public before settling on a final one

chrisjj3• 2 years ago

But "dateModified":"2024-05-08T21:12:24+00:00"

fractallyte• 2 years ago

This has allegedly already been happening for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_Aren%27t_Real

"The movement claims that all birds in the United States were exterminated by the federal government between 1959 and 1971 and replaced by lookalike drones used by the government to spy on citizens... They claim that birds sit on power lines to recharge themselves"

(Note: Birds Aren't Real is a satirical conspiracy theory)

UncleEntity• 2 years ago

Birds Aren't Real is a satirical conspiracy theory

Sure, but Phoenix built a giant trap to catch the malfunctioning ones which have gone rogue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Secret_Is_Patience

jnsie• 2 years ago

How long until someone attaches a bitcoin miner to one of these drones?

pants2• 2 years ago

If it can generate enough revenue from Bitcoin mining that it can pay for it's own spare parts / maintenance, then it's truly self-sufficient!

banish-m43• 2 years ago

Especially when the factory that makes them is also autonomous. The trick then becomes self-replicating done factories.

banish-m43• 2 years ago

Why stop at one?

A nationwide fleet of illicit, unregistered hexacopters that sling 10 GPUs, a server, and LTE connectivity. Upon discovery, they fly off and find other power lines to mooch from.

petre2• 2 years ago

Miner? That's short sighted. They'll likely attach some AI that collects intel, because electricity theft is quite illegal otherwise, so one would be using such a nuisance drone against an adversary. Send'em to Russia or China to watch out for threats.

ramesh31• 2 years ago

Add one more to the list of "inevitable specialities of impending apocalyptic combined arms drone swarms" to lose sleep over.

mycall• 2 years ago

I would love to see it beat two months flying time.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/longest-ever-continuous-f...

EmilyHATFIELD• 2 years ago

Does this technique consumes "usable" electricity of the powerline company or just emissions which would be lost otherwise?

banish-m43• 2 years ago

There's only one kind because heat recovery would require different technology. It's such a small amount so it doesn't matter.

petre2• 2 years ago

Of course it's usable. First law of thermodynamics. It's basically electricity theft wether one does it directly or through induction. It's called a vampire drone for a very good reason.

gravescale4• 2 years ago

Yes, inductively coupling to something increases the load on the primary (or any transformer would be a free energy generator). If it were using only the heat differential between the conductor and the air, like a Stirling engine, then no. In fact, if it acted to cool the powerline, it would probably increase efficiency, to a microscopic degree. And at that point, you'd get better performance from a solar panel.

However, inductively stealing a drone-portable battery on any practical time scale would be all but imperceptible on a powerline at 100kV carrying 500 amps (50MW).

If it's a UHVDC line (or any kind of DC), inductive coupling won't work at all.

jiveturkey• 2 years ago

if it flies it spies

PhilippGille• 2 years ago

Thread with 170 comments from 35 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39945733

dojitza1• 2 years ago

Good. Phase 2 prep of paperclip production continues as planned.

euroderf• 2 years ago

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'Vampire drone' can leech electricity from power lines to live forever

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