Airborne Battery Swapper for Telecom Drones

Ericsson (the Swedish telecommunications giant) has applied for an interesting invention: a UAV that can swap batteries of other UAVs mid-flight. Why would Ericsson need an electric air refueling tanker? Because they want to provide telecommunication services using drones.

Imagine being on a search and rescue mission in a vast expanse of nothing, and you need to check your Instagram. Ericsson’s drones can provide full mobile coverage, and stay aloft indefinitely.

The invention mainly discloses a conveyor system to swap batteries of a UAV that is docked with the flying battery dispenser.

Claim 1: “A conveyor arrangement for airborne battery replacement between an aerial supply vehicle having a store of replacement batteries suitable to power electric aerial vehicles and an electric aerial vehicle powered by a set of replaceable batteries, wherein the conveyor arrangement is configured to convey batteries between the aerial supply vehicle and the electric aerial vehicle during flight to replace a replaceable battery from the set of the electric aerial vehicle by a replacement battery from the store of the aerial supply vehicle.”

The first Claim is tricky: it does not protect a flying battery swapping UAV, but it does cover a conveyor system quite broadly, so if you were to try to design a flying battery swapping UAV, it would have to do that without any conveyor system. Otherwise, you will infringe.

Title: “CONVEYOR ARRANGEMENT FOR AERIAL VEHICLES”

US Patent Application No: 20230373664

Filed (US Reg.): 2020-10-08

Published: 2023-11-23

Applicant: Telefonaktiebolaget lM Ericsson (publ)