Thanks for finding that article !Kanji wrote:That's an awesome design for the receiver.
I found some stuff done by JAXA about space based power. The article says that for laser-based power transmission (hundreds of THz) the receiver needs to be "several hundred meters long" per GW of power, not sure if that is sent or received 1 GW nor what the shape of a "long receiver" might be. While for a microwaved-based transmission (at 5.8 GHz) the receiver would need to have a radius of 3 km per 1 GW of power, due to the size this is basically a large level area. 5.8 GHz was specifically chosen to meet regulation. Lower frequencies result in a longer wavelength (i.e. larger receiver). The article states "Frequencies in the range of 1 to 10 gigahertz offer the best compromise between antenna size and atmospheric attenuation." So you could pick a higher frequency than 5.8 GHz to find a scientifically accurate and more reasonably sized receiver.
It certainly was interesting article to read.
Now a receiver that is 3 km wide for 1 GW of energy That equals to 7 squaremeter per MW, but the atmossphere in Factorio is different so maybe we could increase the power production with 20 %. Therefore when one steam engine is 6 squaremeters. Then we could same spot we could fit 1 MW of energy production. And then sadly it would be taking up way too much space to be something one would want to use :/!
I guess that is something to know.
Now then there is of course the fact that why should we follow the regulations so maybe just maybe we could increase the amplitude of the wave, and with all the advanced tech we got manage to create a dipol antenna that is able to be a whole lot bigger or something.
Yes the picture i sent was for a different kind of antenna. I found out earlier that to turn microwaves to energy it would need to be used a whole load of dipole antennaes(as they also statet in the article). So il think about the design !