Value chain · CLM-1135
In plain terms
Modern power beaming, by the review's dating, starts in 1963 with a radar tube, a horn five and a half metres away and a single vacuum-tube rectifier: 100 watts out for about 670 in. The same year the rectenna was invented by giving every little dipole its own diode.
The claim as recorded
The review dates the first modern power beaming system to 1963 at Raytheon's Spencer Laboratory: a DC-fed magnetron and reflector sent 3 GHz energy "to a horn antenna located 5.5 m away", the horn feeding "a single close-spaced thermionic diode rectifier placed within the horn's waveguide section", and "DC rectified power of 100 W, corresponding to 15% DC-to-DC conversion efficiency, was seen across the diode's terminals", which led to a US Air Force contract for powering an airborne communications platform; the same year the two Raytheon and Purdue authors the review names (PDF 7 / printed 235) moved solid-state diodes out of the waveguide onto a reflecting plane, "the first demonstration of a rectifying antenna (rectenna) array in which each half-wave dipole antenna element was assigned its own semiconductor diode".
Evidence behind this: T2-review restatement of Brown's 1980 rectenna history [61], not held; the earliest dated power-beaming figure in the register.
Scope and limits
A SECONDARY STATEMENT: [61] (Brown, "The history of the development of the rectenna", SPS Microwave Systems Workshop, January 1980; the review prints no venue for it, the January 1980 workshop location comes from its entry [17]) is not held, and the 15 per cent has no stated uncertainty or boundary definition. The 1963 rectenna array's own power and efficiency are not given ("low efficiency numbers" for the in-waveguide version only).
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
PDF 6 / printed 234: "In 1963, the first modern system was constructed at Raytheon's Spencer Lab" (R1); "used a DC-fed magnetron and reflector to send microwave energy at 3 GHz to a horn antenna located 5.5 m away [61]" (R1); "The horn was connected to a single close-spaced thermionic diode rectifier placed within the horn's waveguide section" (R1); "DC rectified power of 100 W, corresponding to 15% DC-to-DC conversion efficiency, was seen across the diode's terminals" (R1); "This demo resulted in a U.S. Air Force contract for remotely powering an airborne communications platform" (normalised). PDF 7 / printed 235: "It was the first demonstration of a rectifying antenna (rectenna) array in which each half-wave dipole antenna element was assigned its own semiconductor diode" (R1). Recomputed: 100 / 0.15 = 667 W DC input.
Basis: GHz; m; W DC; per cent DC-to-DC
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1135
CLM-1135, Energy Aperture, as of 2021-01.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-269
- CLM-1134The field's own 2021 scorecard: the two records were both set in 1975 (30-35 kW across about a mile, and 54 per cent DC in to DC out at...CLM-1136The famous 1964 helicopter hung fifteen metres up for ten hours on beamed microwaves, rectified by four and a half thousand diodes; then...CLM-1137In 1987 a Canadian model plane with a four-and-a-half-metre wingspan flew for twenty minutes at 150 metres on nothing but a microwave beam...CLM-1138A 1994 Japanese test sent five kilowatts from a three-metre dish to an eleven-square-metre rectenna 42 metres away and caught about...CLM-1139A 1995 Japanese blimp carrying a three-by-three-metre rectenna flew for four minutes at fifty metres on ten kilowatts of microwaves from...CLM-1141In 2002 a metre-wide rectenna moved along an exhibition floor in Houston, tracked by a self-steering 5.8 GHz beam, converting 82 per cent...CLM-1142In 2015 Mitsubishi Heavy sent ten kilowatts of microwaves half a kilometre along a Kobe pier to an eight-by-eight-metre receiver, enough to...CLM-1143Japan's flagship 2015 ground test: a solid-state GaN array of about one and a half square metres sent 1.8 kilowatts 55 metres and 335 watts...More on the source page.