Reach Power and Gambit‘s joint Scalable Wireless Aerial Recharging Matrix project has been selected for a funding award through the Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund, sponsored by Air Force Operational Energy and managed by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Energy Resilience & Optimization.
The Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund is the Department of War’s premier joint operational energy investment program, which funds breakthrough energy solutions for military applications. Currently, small, low-cost uncrewed systems, known as Group 1 drones, typically carry only enough battery for about 30 minutes of flight. By the time a swarm is airborne and coordinated, the usable mission time is already reduced. Scaling up these systems with larger batteries defeats their purpose, as the resulting cost, weight, and logistics overhead eliminate the inherent advantages of small, attritable systems.
This limitation creates a compounding burden on warfighters, who must manually install batteries in each drone before flight and then remove, charge, and swap them after every flight. In contested environments, battery resupply becomes a dangerous logistics problem and serves as a primary reason why drone hit rates in active combat zones hover around 30 percent.
The Scalable Wireless Aerial Recharging Matrix project addresses this problem by integrating two emerging capabilities. Reach’s wireless power-beaming solution allows drones to fly to designated waypoints and recharge mid-mission without landing and without human intervention. Simultaneously, Gambit’s artificial intelligence-enabled orchestration behaviors, built on its existing autonomous systems framework, enable individual drones to factor battery state, mission profile, and charging availability into real-time decision-making. Together, the system allows a drone swarm to manage its own energy autonomously by routing aircraft to in-air charging waypoints, sustaining continuous coverage, and freeing warfighters from battery logistics.
“OECIF’s early investment in power beaming is yielding significant strategic dividends as the battlefield shifts toward autonomous operations. By enabling remote sensors and drones to maintain persistent ISR, this technology unlocks their true potential—eliminating the tether of battery swaps and constant recharging to provide an unblinking eye on the target,” said Mr. Christopher DePuma, Operational Energy and Power Projection Portfolio Lead.
“Today’s limitation isn’t just endurance, it’s the operational burden that comes with it,” said Josh Giegel, CEO of Gambit. “By enabling systems to manage energy and coordinate behavior autonomously, SWARM allows operators to focus on the mission instead of sustaining the systems.”
“Drone swarms are only as persistent as their batteries,” said Chris Davlantes, Founder and CEO of Reach. “SWARM changes the equation. When a drone can recharge itself in the air without human intervention, the full potential of autonomy and swarming is unleashed from battery limits. OE-I has been an outstanding partner in helping advance this vision, and this OECIF funding award validates that the Department of War is prioritizing ways to fundamentally enable true drone autonomy.”
The system is designed to support a range of mission concepts of operations where continuous autonomous coverage is critical. These applications include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), counter-UAS (c-UAS), border security, air defense, and force protection.
