Why Every Drone Pilot Needs a Portable Power Station in the Field — and at Home

Merlin Dean
Dec 9
3 min read

As a drone pilot with years of experience flying in remote locations, I’ve learned a simple truth: your mission is only as reliable as your power supply. Drones are incredible machines, but everything they do — mapping, photography, inspections, surveying — depends on a steady flow of energy not just to the aircraft itself, but to the entire ecosystem around it.

Smartphones, iPads, laptops, controllers, external SSDs… they’re all essential tools of the trade. But they’re also all power-hungry. And if any one of them dies mid-mission, you’re grounded. No exceptions.

That’s why portable power stations, especially the rugged and reliable lineup from Anker, have become one of the most important pieces of equipment I carry into the field.

👉 Explore Anker’s full lineup of portable power stations here and get the power you need for your next mission.

Anker Power Solutions

A Day in the Life: 100 Poles, 40 Photos Each — and 6 Batteries Gone Before Lunch

One of my toughest assignments as a professional drone pilot was for a major infrastructure company inspecting telephone poles across rugged rural territory. The goal was simple but demanding:

Photograph 100 telephone poles per day, 30–40 aerial photos each, all perfectly tagged, logged, and documented. 3,000 - 4,000 photos logged per day.

I averaged six drone batteries recharged twice a day, sometimes more depending on heat, wind, and lift efficiency. Add in:

An iPhone running flight apps
An iPad handling mapping software
A laptop offloading and organizing images
A RC controller needing top-offs
Portable SSDs powered through USB

And suddenly, your field setup looks like a mobile power grid.

If I had shown up with only the batteries I brought from home and no way to recharge them on-site, the entire project would have fallen apart. Flights would have halted.

Photo counts would have dropped. The client’s schedule — and my reputation — would have been at risk.

My Anker Power Station was the hero of that project. It kept every drone battery cycling, every device charged, and every hour productive. While other pilots wasted time driving back to civilization hunting for power, I stayed in the field and kept the mission moving.

Time is money — and power is time.

Anker Power Staions

The Hidden Benefit: Your Field Power Station Is Also a Home Emergency Lifesaver

What many pilots overlook is this:

The same power station that saves your drone mission can save your home during an emergency.

Living in earthquake, wildfire, and rolling blackout territory, having a reliable backup power station at home is just smart life planning.

Anker’s power stations can run:

Refrigerators
Lights
Fans
Phones and laptops
Wi-Fi routers
CPAP or medical devices
Emergency radios

In a crisis, your family won’t care about drones — they’ll care that the fridge is running, that they can call for help, that the house isn’t in complete darkness.

Preparedness isn’t paranoia. It’s responsibility.