TECHNOLOGY / LASER POWER NETWORK
Connect regions with surplus generation to regions with power shortages through a laser network in low Earth orbit. As generation and demand change, the network allocates power from multiple sources to multiple destinations.
THE COMPLETE POWER PATH
A laser source alone is not a power network. Electricity must become a high-output, high-efficiency, high-beam-quality CW laser; many changing sources and destinations must be connected through orbit; and the laser must become useful electrical power at the receiver. All three boundaries must work together.
ELECTRICITY → LASER
Deliver high output, high wall-plug efficiency (WPE), and high beam quality at the same CW operating point. Compare single-source scaling, independent-beam power addition, spectral combining, and coherent combining—including thermal limits, combining loss, sidelobes, and fault isolation.
N SOURCES → N DESTINATIONS
Generation, demand, satellite position, and path state change every second. Relay the main power as laser beams while acquisition, tracking, wavefront control, power allocation, and handover operate as one control system.
LASER → USEFUL POWER
Co-design wavelength-matched photovoltaic conversion, illumination, temperature, maximum-power-point tracking, and power electronics. Measure continuous useful output from the receiving aperture to the customer load—not a record from an isolated cell.
Measured from AC input at the generation site to AC output at the demand site. This is neither a demonstrated result nor the best efficiency of an isolated component; it is the design target that constrains every loss in the system.
ENERGY DELIVERY / ELECTRIC SHIPS
Electric ships remain part of the network: receive laser power onboard and turn it into electricity for propulsion and ship systems. The aim is to extend range without carrying all voyage energy in batteries, preserving space for cargo.
A separate coolant loop can move receiver heat through a heat exchanger into seawater. This gives the ship a practical route for rejecting heat while we develop the receiver.
Larger vessels offer room for receiver apertures, cooling equipment, and instrumentation. This leaves space to integrate and refine the hardware onboard.
Sea trials bring beam tracking, conversion, and shipboard electrical loads together. Measure useful output while the vessel moves and connect it to shipboard loads.
Onboard batteries cover weather interruptions, route handovers, and reserve. Receiver size, cooling capacity, and tracking must be designed together for the vessel.
INITIAL APPLICATIONS / AVIATION & HAPS
Low-Earth-orbit satellites beam laser power to electric aircraft in flight. A receiver onboard converts the light into electricity to drive the motors during cruise.
Receiving power in flight reduces the battery mass needed to store cruise energy, making the aircraft lighter.
Solar-powered high-altitude platforms (HAPS) are also an initial application. Short winter days and long nights make overnight battery weight a major constraint. We will develop laser power delivery to reduce that burden.
MODELED ENERGY COST
28%Electricity cost as a share of conventional jet fuel cost (approx.)
Our Tokyo–LA all-electric model. Excludes network charges, aircraft and maintenance.
Our October 2026 model compares the same 9,000 km mission with 246 passengers plus baggage and cargo, totaling 30 tonnes. Purchased electricity costs about $14,000 per flight for the all-electric concept, versus $49,700 in fuel for the conventional concept—about 72% lower. Inputs: $0.015/kWh at the source, 50% source-electricity-to-onboard-electricity efficiency and $1/kg fuel. The model assumes a 500 Wh/kg battery pack, a lightweight receiver and cooling system, and continuous laser power during cruise. It is a concept calculation, not a demonstrated aircraft or a delivered electricity tariff; network charges, aircraft, battery replacement and maintenance are excluded.
The October 28 extension also compares fuel-powered takeoff, landing and emergency flight with laser-powered electric cruise. Its energy cost is about 22% of the conventional fuel cost, assuming the fuel engines stop during cruise, the aircraft adds no extra drag, and deceleration and descent are allowed until the fuel engines restart. A sensitivity case with 200 kg/h of standby fuel consumption across both engines and 10% added drag reaches about 28%. Restart performance remains unverified. This is a separate design candidate, not an adopted aircraft configuration.
HAPS winter energy challenge / SoftBank ↗Delivering power from orbit to aircraft above the clouds avoids cloud layers that would block a beam from the ground.
Keep the laser aligned with the moving aircraft receiver. Stop transmission whenever safe alignment cannot be maintained.
Acquire the next route before switching. Onboard batteries cover takeoff, landing, satellite handovers, interruptions, and reserve.
01 / LASER SOURCE
Separate records for high output, high WPE, and high beam quality do not add up to a viable power-beaming source. We measure all three at the same CW operating point and extend the loss boundary through drivers, thermal control, beam combining, and transmit optics.
Useful optical output sustained under steady-state thermal conditions during continuous-wave operation—not a peak or short-pulse value.
Laser output divided by electrical input to the laser device, distinguished from slope efficiency, optical-to-optical efficiency, and full source-system efficiency including power supplies and thermal control.
Connect M², beam parameter product, far-field intensity, and encircled energy to transmit and receive apertures and the required capture fraction.
Junction temperature, optical-surface damage, wavelength and phase drift, sustained operation, and isolation of failed channels.
PATH A
Scale a single laser architecture such as a PCSEL while retaining high beam quality and WPE.
PATH B
Distinguish independent beams added at the receiver, spectral beam combining, and coherent beam combining; compare beam quality, phase, wavelength, thermal crosstalk, combining loss, and sidelobes.
02 / DYNAMIC N×N ROUTING
When moving surplus generation from high-insolation regions such as Nevada and Arizona to cities, factories, and data centers, a fixed point-to-point link is insufficient. Inputs, outputs, routes, and allocation must be continuously reconfigured.
This is not a packet network that stores power at intermediate nodes. It is an optical circuit-switched network that establishes a simultaneous laser path from source to destination. N×N does not mean copying one beam: multiple independent beams and optical ports are actively pointed, with channel count and source output adjusted to allocate power.
Update generation, demand, satellite position, terminal state, cloud and atmospheric conditions, and thermal margin.
Compare loss and capacity across multiple paths, then allocate output to each destination in real time.
Acquire the next path first; switch satellites or receivers only after optical closure and safe-state confirmation.
Detect tracking excursions, optical contamination, overheating, or intrusion into protected airspace and beam paths; isolate, reallocate, or shut down safely.
OPTICAL-THROUGH RELAY
Converting the received laser to electricity at every relay and using it to drive another laser would compound conversion loss and heat at every hop. The main transmitted energy remains in the laser path and is optically redirected to the next satellite, ship, ground receiver, or aircraft.
Integrate beacons, point-ahead, attitude estimation, coarse pointing, and fast fine-angle correction to hold the beam on a moving downstream aperture.
Stage efficiency is the useful-mode power captured at the next receive aperture divided by the laser power sent toward a relay. It includes diffraction, wavefront error, pointing error, and capture fraction—not mirror reflectivity alone. Ninety percent is the rejection floor for a candidate relay; the design value needed for 50% end to end must be back-solved from endpoint efficiencies and hop count.
DESIGN SENSITIVITY / 96–99% CLASS MAY BE REQUIRED / NOT DEMONSTRATED03 / RECEIVER
The receiver is not a conventional solar panel placed in the beam. We co-optimize a photovoltaic power converter (PPC) matched to the selected laser wavelength and irradiance, receive optics, power electronics, and thermal design.
Match laser center wavelength and spectral width to the receiver cell bandgap and spectral response.
Measure efficiency and temperature under nonuniform illumination, incidence-angle changes, tracking error, and local hot spots.
Preserve useful output through series-resistance control, cell segmentation, series-parallel topology, bypassing, and failed-cell isolation.
Track the maximum power point under changing laser input, then connect to the load through DC/DC conversion and an inverter.
Measure a single boundary from laser input at the receive aperture to load-side output after subtracting cooling and control auxiliaries.
CONCEPT VISUALBUILD THIS NETWORK
Laser sources, optical relays, PAT, dynamic routing, receivers, power electronics, thermal engineering, and safety: we want to speak directly with people who have built hardware in any one of these domains.
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