Is Wireless Power Closer Than We Think?
Tesla Would Be Proud
A few years back, Marin Soljačić was driven from bed by the insistent beeping of his mobile phone. But it wasn’t beeping for him to answer it, it was beeping for him to plug it in. Since that night, the assistant professor of physics at MIT, has been thinking about ways to start his phone charging as soon as he enters his home - without the need for plugs or wires.Jennifer Chu at Technology Review writes that Soljačić considered using radio waves, but found that most of their energy would be lost in transmission. Targeted methods like lasers require a clear line-of-sight and could be dangerous for anything in their way. According to Chu, he eventually settled on a phenomenon called magnetic resonance coupling, in which two objects tuned to the same frequency exchange energy strongly but interact only weakly with other objects.
“A classic example is a set of wine glasses, each filled to a different level so that it vibrates at a different sound frequency. If a singer hits a pitch that matches the frequency of one glass, the glass might absorb so much acoustic energy that it will shatter; the other glasses remain unaffected.”
Now, Soljačić and his team have successfully demonstrated the use of magnetic resonance coupling to power a 60 watt light bulb from a distance of roughly two meters - and through a thin wall.
The most effective setup, thus far, transfers power over a distance of two meters with about 50 percent efficiency. The team is looking at other materials to decrease coil size and boost efficiency. “While ideally it would be nice to have efficiencies at 100 percent,” says Soljačić. “So realistically, 70 to 80 percent could be possible for a typical application.”
While some wireless power technologies have emerged in the marketplace, Soljačić’s technique differs in that it might one day enable devices to recharge automatically, whenever they come within range of a wireless transmitter.
@Matthew & Arman
Your average light bulb is horribly inefficient. Most of the energy a light bulb consumes is dissipated as heat, not light. Anything in the 80% range isn’t bad. When the guy was saying we could get it to 70-80%, I thought he was bragging!
Isn’t that what a PV does ?
@P Bartlett: He’s published. Drawing conclusions without research is probably more dangerous to the integrity of research ehh?
http://www.mit.edu/~soljacic/wireless-power_AoP.pdf
I’ve heard about this before, but this method is something I don’t remember hearing previously.
Until efficiency reaches a higher level, this seems like a great waste of resources.
I would hate to have a filling that just happened to have the same resonance frequency as a light bulb. Electrocuted without even touching a wire. But there are some really great implications for its use in the medical fields.
Similar thing already being done here:
http://www.ecoupled.com
“One of the seven signs of bogus technology is that the inventor pitches the technology directly to the media rather than peer reviewed journals.
Thats what we have here. The guy is a charlatan.”
Oh really? So, this professor at MIT who has a PhD from Princeton is a charlatan?
He’s part of a research team at MIT who are developing this technology.
Oh, and they did actually publish an article in a peer-reviewed journal (That prestigious one called Science)
yes this is how my pacemaker recharges
yea.. problem is the human body has lots of things inside it that can be affected by the similar frequency..
yay tumor..
I am not happy with all those wires arround me…. (PC at least 3 power wires [monitor, pc and speakers], GSM charger, TV, sound system, digital clocks, not to mention the power wires in the wall)… and all of this wires emit some radiations (electro magnetic)… then we have some wireless gadgets like radio transistors, gsms, bluetooth devices, wireless modems, mouses and keyboards, TV remotes and many others…. most of them are working on radio waves, microwaves…. ISN’T THIS ENOUGH? Our homes are polluted with electromagnetic radiations!!! And we want even more???
Maybe one gadget like GSM or digital clock is not hurting us, but so many at a time???? + now the desire of even more???
They should concentrate of inventing a no emission power source battery or maybe improving the wire coating or something. I am really pro improvements…. but in my opinion there are many ways to achieve them and we certainly don’t have the necessity pick the “stupid” one
Why the negativity? when was the last time you invented something for humanity? lol.. It’s a start! As a musician I despise cables (and adapters)! I hope I’ll still be alive when wireless power would be possible!