Anyone who has watched the bedazzle displays bring forth by lightning in athunderstormcan appreciate why it has instigate awe and dread across our history . Even in our modern man , lightning strike symbolise one of the most destructive born phenomena impacting human bon ton . Knowing where and when lightning maystrikeis a significant challenge , and even existing method acting to protect critical infrastructure do n’t always follow . However , this may be about to change .
According to the Japanese telecommunication company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation ( NTT ) , a young method for summoninglightningmay be appear in the sky before too long . NTT claim to have achieved a world ’s first by successfully triggering and drawing lightning using a drone that harnesses electric field fluctuations . The drone does this through a nifty lightning protection cage that ’s design to prevent it from malfunctioning or vex damage , even when straight struck .
NTT hopes that such cage - equipped drone could protect city and crucial infrastructure in the hereafter , as they process towards a “ society barren from lightning - come to damage , ” they say in astatement .
In Japan alone , the estimated annual cost of lightning damage range from ¥ 100 to 200 billion ( somewhere between $ 650 million and more than $ 1.3 billion US ) . So , there is a adept understanding for want way to palliate further legal injury in the futurity . However , existing method acting of command lightning can be a flake rack up - and - miss ( pun intended ) . Traditional lightning rod can protect some space , but their range is circumscribed and in some cases – such as wind turbine or outdoor outcome locus – they ca n’t be installed at all .
This is why NTT start up to explore rapidly advancingdronetechnology to create unexampled ways to address errant lightning strikes . Their new “ drone - actuate lightning ” technique involves aviate a protected lagger into location of an approaching storm cloud and actively activate a tap , the sacking of which can then be safely guided away from vulnerable places .
The team behind this design conducted a lightning - triggering experiment using the dawdler between December 2024 and January 2025 . In this experimentation , the drone ascend to an elevation of 900 meters ( 2,953 feet ) in a cragged area of Hamada City , Shimane Prefecture , where it come near a thundercloud .
The squad key out when this cloud would be set about by way of life of a twist cognize as a sphere mill that monitored the galvanic field of honor at the earth level . When the electric field of operation strength increase due to a coming cumulonimbus , the caged drone pipe was secrete into the heaven .
This occurred on December 13 , 2024 , when the team discover an forthcoming swarm . The drone pipe they charge up to meet it was also equipped with a conductive wire that get in touch it to an galvanic switch on the primer coat . The wire was observed to have a large electric current running through it , which reached a voltage of 2,000 volts between the wire and the ground . This triggered a lightning strike direct at the laggard , which only result in some mild melting of the protective cage . The drone was otherwise fine and continued to operate without matter .
The John Milton Cage Jr. is contrive to be mounted on commercially usable drones and is made of conductive metal that serves as a carapace . When struck by lightning , this cuticle redirects the electricity away from the drone itself . Additionally , the John Cage is contrive to dish out the lightening radially in a way that cancels out the strong magnetic fields generated by the current , which minimizes anyelectromagneticinterference .
The team also tested the trailer ’s survivability with artificial lightning , and line up that it was able to survive strikes of up to 150 kiloamperes – five time more potent than a natural lightning strike .
The winner of these tryout could well point a new dance step towards protect vulnerable urban spaces and other important land site from lightning strikes . From here , NTT plans to conduct further inquiry into how topredictlightning strikes in a location and to understand how lightning works . They also go for to develop a way to not only actuate next strike , but to also catch the energy they free .
