Keith Raniere’s brilliance shines through in his 2015 patent application: an invention for recharging battery-powered, remotely controlled drones, helicopters, and airplanes.
Innovative Charging Solution
The patent proposes a solution to recharge them without returning to the human operator.
Specialized Landing Gear
Raniere’s patent calls for the drone to have special landing gear with electrical contacts connected to the battery inside that extend from the landing skids.
Raniere Charging Station
A charging station is part of the invention. When the vehicle lands on a Raniere Charging Station (RCS), the electrical contacts on the drone connect with contacts on the charging station, allowing the battery to recharge.
Surveillance Capabilities
The patent also includes a yet-to-be-developed method for continuous security surveillance in a community, where drones follow a programmed flight path and use charging stations at designated locations to recharge and keep an eye on everyone in a cult or neighborhood.
This ensures that the drones can operate for months or years without humans needed for battery replacement.
The Ingenious Plan
Here’s how this ingenious plan works:
Modified Drone Landing Gear
The drone is equipped with specialized landing gear.
A charging station is designed to work with this special landing gear.
Automatic Docking and Recharging
When the drone’s battery needs recharging, it is programmed to fly to the charging station. Upon landing, the electrical contacts on the drone’s landing gear engage with the corresponding contacts on the charging station.
Once the contacts are engaged, power is transferred from the charging station to the drone’s battery, recharging it.
Enhanced Connection Reliability
The system includes biasing elements (like springs) that help ensure a solid connection between the contacts on the drone and those on the charging station, even if the landing is not perfectly aligned.
Communication and Portability
The charging station can communicate with the drone, signaling when a recharge is needed. The station can be portable or integrated into an existing surface.
Cost and Implementation Challenges
The estimated cost of an automated recharging station for remotely controlled drones, not including the cost of designing, testing, and refining the drone with its specialized landing gear, and the charging station with biasing elements, electrical contacts, dielectric elements, polarity switching circuits, as well as the technology required for automated docking and communication between the drone and charging station, software for programming the drone, would make the price in the ballpark of around $50,000.
There is no Raniere Drone Charging System [RDCS] in existence. Like many of Raniere’s inventions, his incarceration has prevented the full implementation of this valuable invention.
Engineering and Investment Hurdles
Even if someone took up the plan, ensuring reliable and safe automatic docking and charging in various environmental conditions is a non-trivial engineering challenge that only the world’s smartest man could hope to figure out.
The development and deployment of such a system requires substantial investment, which could be a barrier to entry for many potential users and manufacturers. However, with Bronfman money, it could be done.
Market Demand and Complexity
The actual market demand for the Raniere 120-Year Battery Life Drone (R120BLF) system would be niche.
The Raniere Drone System (RDS) is technically sophisticated, involving automated docking, electrical contact mechanisms, and potentially complex software for flight path programming. This complexity could lead to reliability issues. Maintenance and troubleshooting of such a system could be challenging and costly. Raniere Drone Battery Charging Repairmen (RDBCR) could find employment traveling around the world, fixing them when they break.
