Huawei wants drones powered wirelessly from cell towers

Drone usage is climbing rapidly, with unmanned aerial vehicles getting used in the commercial sector all the time. Still, battery life has remained a significant issue for these devices. Users are often lucky to get 30 minutes of flight out of the average quadcopter. At Mobile World Congress, Huawei teased what it believes will be a solution to this in the future: wireless charging from cell towers.

This idea comes from Huawei's X Labs, which is working with China Mobile to develop the technology. The primary goal is to improve drone usage for cell tower inspections, which is becoming a more common use for them. Huawei believes the main issues for using drones in this area are battery life and GPS interference, so it wants to develop cell towers that can both wirelessly charge drones and boost GPS signals.

Anyone familiar with the current state of wireless charging knows this kind of technology is years off, but it is encouraging that companies are now thinking about the possibilities. If the technology improves in a few years, even if it is not able to fully charge a drone, it could increase flight times enough to significantly impact how people work with drones. It is also a good sign for the drone market that companies are willing to invest in these kinds of projects.

China Mobile has already collaborated with others on projects involving drones. Last year, it worked with Ericsson to create 5G-enabled drones that could handle cell tower handoffs to ease network latency.