LIVINGSTON: £5.3M Ground-to-Air Laser Power Project

Durham University’s 22 September 2026 project announcement identifies £5.3 million in ARIA funding for LIVINGSTON, a collaboration with Scalable Laser and the University of Glasgow to develop laser power beaming for high-altitude aircraft. The proposed system would turn electricity into laser light on the ground, transmit it through the atmosphere and convert it back into electricity aboard an aircraft. The announcement describes technology to be developed, not an aircraft already flying on beamed power.

ARIA’s funded-project register lists LIVINGSTON as active enabling-technology research led by Scalable Laser’s Richard Hogg. It places systems integration and testing in a separate strand, whose broader goal is continuous power delivery to a payload while an aircraft keeps station. An active listing establishes that LIVINGSTON is funded research; it does not establish that the proposed power link works in flight.

The route from ground electricity to aircraft power

The energy chain begins at an electrical supply feeding a ground-based flat-panel laser emitter. The emitter converts some input electricity into light, and ground-station optics direct that light toward a photovoltaic receiver carried by the aircraft. The receiver converts the light it captures into electrical power. Keeping the aircraft aloft depends on enough usable electricity reaching its loads, not merely on a bright beam leaving the ground.

The Scalable Laser project account assigns the emitter to Scalable Laser, the photovoltaic converter to Glasgow and the beam-directing optics to Durham; it describes a proposed link to a platform up to 25 km away. Glasgow’s receiver is intended to match the laser’s wavelength, so its conversion performance will depend on the light that actually arrives. Durham’s optics must deliver that light to the receiver despite the distance and changing air between them.

Moving the energy source to the ground is the project’s appeal: an aircraft could draw power without carrying all of the fuel, battery capacity or solar collection area needed for a long mission. That possibility comes with a new dependency. The aircraft would need a suitable ground station and an optical path capable of supplying power when it is required. The project descriptions do not yet show how those dependencies would be managed during sustained flight.

Why reaching the receiver is difficult

The beam has to follow an aircraft rather than illuminate a fixed target. A tightly directed beam can put more light onto a relatively small receiver, but a pointing error can send it outside the collecting area. The challenge grows with distance: a small change in the beam’s direction at the ground station can become a substantial displacement where the aircraft is flying.

Tracking the aircraft’s location addresses only part of that problem. Heat and atmospheric turbulence can distort a beam as it travels. The proposed optical arrangement uses a reference beacon on the airborne platform to measure distortion and a rapidly adjustable mirror at the ground station to correct the outgoing light. The correction must work while the aircraft moves and the conditions along the path change; a well-aimed beam at one instant does not guarantee a stable power supply.

Weather presents a separate obstacle. Cloud, haze or precipitation can reduce the light reaching the receiver even when tracking is accurate. A practical system would have to establish how often a usable path is available and what happens when delivery falls below the aircraft’s demand. The public descriptions do not quantify that availability or specify how long an interruption the aircraft could tolerate.

The efficiency figure that matters

Performance must be measured across the whole chain: electrical input at the ground station, conversion into laser light, losses in the optics and atmosphere, the fraction captured by the airborne receiver, and conversion back into electricity. Each stage reduces the power available at the next. A strong result for the laser or photovoltaic converter alone would therefore say little about the electricity an aircraft could use.

Receiver area creates a trade-off. A larger surface could collect more light when the beam spreads or shifts, but the aircraft must carry its mass and accommodate its shape. The ground station also needs electrical supply, cooling and control equipment. Assessing the concept means comparing sustained electrical output aboard the aircraft with the ground input and the hardware needed at both ends, under changing atmospheric conditions.

The cited project descriptions provide no measured end-to-end efficiency for LIVINGSTON and no measured electrical output from an aircraft-mounted receiver. They also do not report how delivered power varies with pointing error or weather. Those measurements would show whether component improvements combine into a useful airborne supply; until they exist, continuous operation remains an objective rather than a demonstrated capability.

What remains between funding and sustained flight

LIVINGSTON has a funded collaboration, a division of engineering work and a proposed way to correct atmospheric distortion. The available material does not report an integrated ground-to-air flight test or an aircraft kept aloft continuously by its beam. Its place in ARIA’s enabling-technology strand is consistent with that stage of development.

An integrated demonstration would need to show the emitter, optics and receiver operating together over a real atmospheric path while the receiver moves. It would need sustained measurements of ground input and airborne electrical output, including periods when tracking or visibility deteriorates. A flight system would also need to show how the beam is controlled if alignment is lost or other aircraft enter the relevant airspace; the project announcements present no such validation result.

The confirmed development is the effort to build a ground-to-air power link. The next evidence that could change the story is measured electrical delivery to an airborne receiver, followed by proof that delivery can be maintained long enough to support flight. For now, keeping aircraft aloft with ground power is LIVINGSTON’s aim, not its reported achievement.