DisCoBeam for Future WPT Applications

This paper presents an advanced Distributed Coherent Beamforming (DisCoBeam) concept that can potentially be used to enable a low-cost space-based wireless power transmission (WPT) solution. The proposed concept uses a proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) CubeSat constellation. The constellation consists of N number of low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) satellites. The DisCoBeam concept requires each satellite to be equipped with solar power collecting arrays, a microwave transmitting antenna, and a GPS receiver for accurate position, navigation, and timing (PNT). This allows the satellites to work together to form a coherent microwave beam on a targeted ground rectenna receiver (RX) . Under ideal operational conditions, it will be shown that the proposed DisCoBeam concept can enhance the space-based WPT efficiency by a factor of N-squared. Leveraging the dynamic systems-of-systems (SoS) MATLAB simulator developed by CSUF team for unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms, we show that the proposed DisCoBeam can achieve about 72% of N-squared at the maximum slant range assuming the PNT of each UAS platform are known precisely and the flight-path strategy results in a linear uniformly-distributed beamforming array within a 1-mile square area with a maximum number of 10 UAS platforms. Finally, the paper discusses the extension of the UAS results to the proposed pLEO satellites scenario.