A research team at Xidian University in Xi'an has reached a significant milestone in wireless power transmission by successfully beaming 1,180 watts over a distance of 100 meters using microwaves during ground tests for the "Zhuri" (Chasing the Sun) project. This experiment recorded a DC-to-DC efficiency of 20.8 percent and a beam collection efficiency of 88 percent, marks that represent a substantial technological leap forward.
The defining feature of these trials is the shift from fixed-point transmission to a dynamic system capable of powering multiple moving targets simultaneously. This advancement is vital for real-world use, as satellites and ground-based mobile units are in constant motion. During a separate demonstration, a drone traveling at 30 km/h at a 30-meter range received a steady 143 watts of power, proving the system's ability to maintain beam accuracy on moving targets. The experimental setup features a 4.8-meter mirror mounted on a 75-meter tower, integrated with solar panels, a microwave converter, and a rectenna receiver designed by a team led by Duan Baoyan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
By way of comparison, efficiency stood at just 15.05 percent in 2022 when the world's first full-chain verification system—covering everything from solar concentration to power recovery—was completed. This one-third increase in efficiency over just four years of research signals a rapid acceleration in scientific development, even though the leap to orbital deployment remains a massive undertaking.
To put the challenge into perspective: the 36,000-kilometer distance to geostationary orbit is millions of times farther than the 100 meters covered in this laboratory test. Future success will require scaling transmitting and receiving antennas to hundreds of meters, perfecting beam steering through atmospheric turbulence over thousands of kilometers, and drastically increasing overall system efficiency while ensuring hardware can survive the harsh conditions of space. While the exact cost and deployment timeline for a full orbital station remain unclear, China has officially targeted 2030 for its first megawatt-scale space-based tests.
While the system's operating principle is simple in theory, its implementation is technically demanding. Mirrors are used to focus sunlight onto silicon panels to generate direct current; solid-state converters then transform this energy into centimeter-band microwaves, which are focused into a narrow beam and aimed at a receiver. At the destination, a specialized rectifying antenna converts these radio waves back into usable electricity. Microwaves are used because they can penetrate the Earth's atmosphere with far less energy loss than infrared or visible light, making them ideal for space-to-ground transmission.
The project is built upon the OMEGA architecture, which was first proposed by Duan Baoyan’s team in 2014. This framework utilizes spherical sunlight concentration and a modular design, allowing components to be assembled in orbit like building blocks. A newer, distributed version of OMEGA has been developed recently to improve scalability and eliminate single points of failure within the orbital structure.
While this milestone confirms tangible progress in the ground-based verification of core components, it does not suggest that a commercial orbital power station is around the corner. Massive engineering challenges—such as scaling antenna sizes a hundredfold, managing atmospheric beam drift over vast distances, and ensuring system-wide reliability in orbit—have yet to be solved. Compared to the 2022 ground tests, the power improvements are significant, but they represent only one stage of a long journey. These specific efficiency gains over a hundred meters prove that individual components of the technology chain are maturing, but integrating them into a cohesive orbital system will require technical breakthroughs that are currently difficult to forecast.
