A few years ago a similar story about similar technology popped up, and I referred [1] to a New Scientist story[2] from 2000 that described something remarkably similar, being designed and built by an Australian researcher called Bryan Roberts.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9222149

[2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16722574-800-reach-fo...