SunCubes deploys SimScale’s Engineering AI to develop laser-based charging solutions that let drones and UAVs recharge in flight
SunCubes, a deep-tech startup developing laser-based wireless power transmission, is using SimScale’s Engineering AI to design and validate the systems that let drones and UAVs recharge in flight. Agentic simulation lets the team evaluate the thermal, structural and aerodynamic performance of new drone architectures in the cloud, without the cost and delay of physical prototyping or a dedicated simulation specialist. The work targets the range and endurance limits that constrain commercial and industrial drone operations today, in a sector forecast to reach $52.1 billion by 2033.
MUNICH, Germany, Wednesday 2nd September 2026: SunCubes, a deep-tech startup pioneering wireless energy transmission technology for unmanned aerial systems, has announced it is deploying Engineering AI tools from ai-native cloud simulation platform, SimScale. The company will use the technology to develop laser-based charging solutions that let drones and unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) recharge in flight, or at remote stations, without physical contact.
Battery performance is a key bottleneck for the drone and UAV sector. McKinsey identifies battery and powertrain technology as a critical limiter to drone delivery range. And research on the suitability of drones and UAVs to monitor energy infrastructure also highlights range as a blocker for long-range pipeline and remote asset monitoring, such as offshore wind turbines. Currently, in agriculture use, large farms have to constantly swap drone batteries manually.
As the industry looks to almost double from $24.4 billion in 2025 to $52.1 billion in 2033 across energy, infrastructure, agriculture, logistics, construction and security, solving this challenge is mission critical. The development of SunCube’s in-flight charging technology will eliminate these range and endurance limitations that constrain today’s commercial and industrial drone deployments.
SunCubes’ engineering team is using SimScale’s cloud-native simulation platform, including its AI-powered agentic simulation capabilities, to support the design and validation of its UAV systems and wireless energy transfer hardware. Simulation is central to the company’s product development process, enabling the team to evaluate thermal, structural, and aerodynamic performance of its advanced drone architectures without the time and cost constraints of physical prototyping.
“Simulation is not a support function for us – it’s how we build,” says Davide Russo, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, SunCubes.
Davide Russo
Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, SunCubes
“SimScale gives us the capability to run complex, multi-physics analysis on our UAV designs and energy transfer systems in the cloud, with AI that helps us set up and interpret simulations faster than ever. For a team our size, this means we’re not blocked by inadequate tools and can move at startup speed, which is critical to our success.”
“SunCubes represents a genuinely new frontier for engineering simulation,” says David Heiny, Co-Founder and CEO of SimScale.
David Heiny
CEO, SimScale
“Laser-based wireless charging for drones is one of the most technically demanding hardware challenges in the industry today, and seeing a team this focused on using AI-assisted simulation as a core design tool is exactly the future we’re building toward.”
About SunCubes
SunCubes is a deep-tech company developing optical power systems based on laser technology. The company builds the control layer of optical power: the systems, software, control logic, and integration layer required to point, track, stabilize, manage, and safely deliver optical power over distance. SunCubes Light is a portable wireless recharging system designed to deliver optical power to remote sensors, surveillance devices, and monitoring nodes where cabling, battery replacement, or local power sources are impractical, expensive, or operationally limiting.
About SimScale
SimScale is the AI-native cloud platform for engineering simulation. Trusted by more than 900,000 users, SimScale empowers engineers everywhere to innovate faster by exploring 1000’s of engineering decisions in seconds. By integrating Engineering AI agents and Physics AI models with computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite element analysis (FEA), electromagnetic, and thermal simulation in a single cloud platform, SimScale empowers teams to engineer the irreplaceable. For more information, visit www.simscale.com.
SimScale is a registered trademark of SimScale GmbH. All other trademarks not owned by SimScale GmbH are the property of their respective owners.
Media contact: marketing@simscale.com
