Self Charging Drones. Founded in 2025 by Hayden Gosch, Avi Gotskind, Ronan Nopp, and Warren Weissbluth, Voltair has 5 employees based in San Francisco, CA, USA. Voltair is hiring for 7 roles in…
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By anfractuosity 2026-01-1019:262 reply Remember seeing this a little while ago too - https://www.fastcompany.com/91089861/this-genius-vampire-dro...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-uekD6VTIQ has a video of their drone on a power line.
By HelloUsername 2026-01-1019:59 Discussed april/may 2024
"'Vampire drone' can leech electricity from power lines to live forever" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40317484
"Autonomous Overhead Powerline Recharging for Uninterrupted Drone Operations" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39945733
By nhma 2026-01-110:55 The prototype in the linked video was first tested back in 2023, and since then a few startups have set their sights on the technology (e.g. Nomadic Drones and Voltair). When working on the linked prototype we ran into some fundamental issues. Firstly, the recharging will only work with AC lines, and there's currently a lot of hype around UHVDC lines which are not compatible. Secondly, the AC lines must carry substantial current (ideally thousands of amps) for the recharging to not take forever. You can of course carry a much larger transformer on the drone to compensate, but this will in turn severely limit your flight time (ours was 1kg on a drone of 4.5kg and we could charge with 50W from 300A line current). You also have to account for significant daily fluctuations in the line current. It'll be interesting to see how the tech evolves, and I'll definitely be following these startups closely.
By bmitch3020 2026-01-1020:215 reply I'm surprised this isn't already happening in Ukraine. They could fly small surveillance drones deep in enemy territory, perch on a power line, and send back lots of data. Not just video, but also sound and triangulating signals. This would also be useful in fog by monitoring major roads where high altitude drones and satellites would be obstructed.
By DrewADesign 2026-01-1020:385 reply I'm not like a drone-i-ologist or nothin, but from what I gather, both sides have gotten really good at detecting and jamming drone communication in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which would probably make that a tough use case. I've read that the newer attack drones are controlled by a reaaallly long, reaaalllyy thin fiber optic line!
By 650REDHAIR 2026-01-1021:502 reply New attack models are using shielded electronics that don't need GPS and are immune to traditional jamming. Relying on computer vision and old school navigation math.
Go ~X speed for Y distance(+/-) on Z heading until you reach A landmark and then start a new set of instructions.
By cyanydeez 2026-01-111:16 Yeah, but not in ukraine. They brute forced fiber, fly by wire.
Dead reckoning via inertial sensors, cameras, etc are way to complex for the flight controllers without heavier hardware since theyre hugely inefficient.
AI at the sophistication to do this stuff is essentially bloatware. Like running electron instead of a bare metal gui.
By DrewADesign 2026-01-1023:561 reply I’m interested in reading up on that. Where did you see it?
You can take a look into inertial navigation systems and then also terrain mapping
By DrewADesign 2026-01-112:281 reply Everything I’ve found about the drones in that conflict indicates they use automated navigation for pursuit once a target is locked, but human pilots before then.
you described two different steps: human pilots get to desired area and target locked. For the human part, if the drone isn't using fiber optic and is getting jammed (many types of jamming), the human pilot might not be able to communicate with the drone. If that's the case, how will the drone get to the desired area? that's where the two things i posted come into play.
By DrewADesign 2026-01-1110:42 I understand the technology and the purpose, in context. I’m curious about how they’re actually using this stuff because I haven’t seen anywhere say that they actually are.
Those fiber optic lines only work 50-60% of the time. Often the drones are carried 20km on foot into position which sucks as you know half the equipment on your back won't work.
By snowmobile 2026-01-1021:451 reply How do they not work? Just fail in transmitting data completely? Do you have a link to learn more about this?
By 650REDHAIR 2026-01-1021:512 reply Cable breaks
By mycall 2026-01-148:05 That's right. It is just thin glass.
By snowmobile 2026-01-116:351 reply Well, there's a difference between breaking and being broken. I wouldn't say 33% of all B-17s "didn't work" because they were shot down.
By DrewADesign 2026-01-1113:161 reply Also, those drones are essentially guided projectiles, and not even particularly expensive ones at that. What percentage of projectiles do you imagine successfully connect with their targets in combat?
By snowmobile 2026-01-1623:311 reply That's exactly what I mean though. If you miss the target with your rifle, would you call that "bullet not working"?
By DrewADesign 2026-01-2618:15 Yeah I completely agree with everything you said.
By DrewADesign 2026-01-1113:171 reply Where did you see that?
By DrewADesign 2026-01-152:15 Thanks, that must be a pretty interesting person to interview. I'll check it out.
The idea would be to use autonomous drones, so they wouldn't need to communicate, the problem would be that the GPS signal is jammed.
By BobaFloutist 2026-01-1023:081 reply If they're not communicating, how are they sending back lots of data?
I presume these are surveillance drones and are programmed to loop back to origin
By DrewADesign 2026-01-1023:49 Surveillance gathered by an completely autonomous drone with no outside data, stationed far enough away to require refueling, close enough to enemy operations to be useful, that then needs to make its way back to origin, intact, through hostile territory, quickly enough for the gathered information to be useful, seems like a preeeetty big lift. Something a startup would promise to tackle with a star team of technologists over the course of like 10 years? Sure. Something they’d have designed within the past, like, year while getting shot at? I’d have to see that believe it.
By rurban 2026-01-1112:24 At the end of WW2 the very same happened. As if they didn't learn from history. Well, that are Chinese drones, which weren't part of the signals war then.
By bmitch3020 2026-01-1020:51 A jammed drone that's perched on a power line wouldn't fall out of the sky, and doesn't need to transmit 24x7, only when it detects some activity. The lack of a signal from it would itself be a signal of where the next attack is coming from. Anti-jamming weapons (missiles and autonomous drones) would also be useful, that lock on to any signal jamming sources and deliver the munitions directly to the target that's advertising itself.
By cyanydeez 2026-01-111:12 The problem is signal jamming which forced using fiber.
So the limit isnt batteries, its fiber spools.
as soon as it sends RF it'll be located and destroyed.
There has been lots of work to make fibre connected drones, so that they can't be located as easily (also the pilot)
By bmitch3020 2026-01-1020:541 reply There's also powerline communication that these drones could use, relaying a signal to a second drone perched back in friendly territory. And if the military is going around blowing up all of their power transmission lines, that's also going to hurt them.
By idiotsecant 2026-01-1021:181 reply How many intact and tactically relevant cross border transmission lines between Ukraine and Russia can there be?
By browsingonly 2026-01-1021:461 reply Use the transmission lines to link up with an RF node to hand off. Friendly territory might just be some place without good Russian internal security coverage (perhaps deeper in Russia rather than towards the front lines if the node uses satcom).
A friend of mine worked on a covert comms system for the Rangers to use in the Battle For Berlin that thankfully never occurred. The idea was to clamp onto plumbing, fences, and similar infrastructure where possible. Nodes with radios handed off to other comms systems. It worked reasonably well in tests but I don't know that it went anywhere, point is that the theory is sound.
By beedeebeedee 2026-01-1118:09 Reminds me of the barb wire telephones
By jimmydddd 2026-01-1021:31 I wonder if the power line could be damaged if they dry to take out the drone?
By jacquesm 2026-01-1020:38 The radio links and navigation are the hard parts.
Huh, is that legal? I mean I guess it is when the power company is the customer, as they talk about, but otherwise?
I'd assume otherwise you have to have a way for the drones to meter their usage and pay the power company. It will likely make power theft easier, but it seems entirely viable to have an account with the power company where you report "I drew X joules from line Y" and for them to bill appropriately.
By adrianmonk 2026-01-1022:09 The simplest might be for the drone company to act as an intermediary. They'd bill drone users for charging and have contracts with utilities. The drone company could do some authentication / DRM / etc. so that you'd basically have to jailbreak your drone to charge without paying.
Yes, I'm sure the markup would be large as a percentage, but for most customers the convenience would be worth it. Most of the customers are probably commercial and don't want to risk getting banned or sued.
That seems entirely unviable to me. Have you met… people?
“Trust me, bro!” is something I wish my power company would do, but they installed a meter instead.
By lesam 2026-01-1019:06 Depends. When millions are on the line between companies, people are surprisingly willing to take a hand-created excel file as 'proof'. For example: https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/tricolors-excel-g...
By notahacker 2026-01-1019:18 Feels like this is likely to be targeting government and major corporate clients, in which case they're probably in a strong place to negotiate agreements based on charge reported by the drone's on board software. Not to mention the utility companies themselves, who are mentioned as the initial market.
What's unviable about having the power company vet the thing that reports "I drew X joules from line Y" like they would vet any other meter?
Does the device report directly to the power company, or is that data aggregated and reported in some other format?
If it's the latter then hand editing is all it takes to create fraud.
By closewith 2026-01-1020:14 Hand editing is all it takes to create fraud in all areas of business.
By Analemma_ 2026-01-1019:47 B2B transactions like this are handled fine with contracts and lawyers all the time, I doubt it would be an issue. In the worst case, the utility could own the recharging module on the drone, just like they own your power meter.
Unmetered electric service based on "trust me bro" is actually the default (at least in the US) for a huge variety of devices, like streetlights, cell towers mounted to electric poles, public irrigation systems, etc etc.
Almost every US utility has a "UM" process to self-assess an unmetered load's consumption and be billed. So, yes, it's not only viable but widespread.
By rightbyte 2026-01-1020:01 > Unmetered electric service based on "trust me bro" is actually the default (at least in the US) for a huge variety of devices
I wouldn't talk too loud about this or you will ruin it for all of us. If I discover the street lights on my street mine botcoins I will blame you.
By lkbm 2026-01-1023:51 I mean, if I have to pay them by how much power I draw, I'm pretty glad they have a way to measure that, because I don't.
What's there alternative in this case? If I can land a drone on the power line and suck up some power, they can either charge me when I tell them I did it, or they can not charge me.
By echelon 2026-01-1019:13 They'll use this narrative to fundraise and build. Then they'll build their own distributed charging infra that becomes a moat.
By _qua 2026-01-1019:19 Presumably they'd be doing inspections for the power company, who probably don't care if some minuscule amounts of power are consumed directly during operations.
By znnajdla 2026-01-1019:20 There is a not so subtle hint in the description that they were mainly inspired by military applications (Air Force, DARPA). Legality doesn’t matter when you’re in enemy territory.
By KaiserPro 2026-01-1020:43 Liability is probably the biggest issue, rather than using the energy. If it causes damage because it fails to connect properly, or if it has a trailing wire to pick up other phases (not actually connect to it but to pick up induction)
By galkk 2026-01-1020:07 The drones heavier than 250g already must transmit remote id
By quickthrowman 2026-01-1020:34 You can install electric fencing beneath high voltage transmission lines and it will be energized for ‘free’.
