WiTricity (Wireless Electricity)
MIT has successfully demonstrates a wireless power transfer. The team powers a light bulb with seven feet of space and the members obstructing the direct line between the coils. Coined WiTricity, this could be used to power many devices without cords. The technique uses a type of electromagnetic resonance (much like resonance with sound) causing efficient power transfers unlike with radio waves. It also also does not need a direct line of sight for it to work.
I think this could be one of the most amazing inventions since cell phones. Imagine no wires at all. Not even outlets. You purchase a new television and all you have to do is set it where you want it and turn it on. It will automatically pick up (much like wifi) the power source it is keyed to. Or say if your cellphone runs low on battery, it could automatically start charging itself wherever it lay in your house. The article says that the technique is so inlaid in the laws of physics, they’re surprised no one has ever thought of it before.
::Update::
Read the comments, they’re full of information and opinion.
Through MIT
Loading …June 16 2007 06:24 pm | Science and Technology
Will E UMM on 19 Sep 2007 at 11:02 pm #
Unfortunately I don’t think it will take off. The chances are they will find it to cause cancer or build up some sort of static shock that will stop a persons heart when you touch a door handle. Maybe i don’t know enough about the subject, but I can’t imagine 100’s of amps floating in the air throughout the house is a good thing.
Uma sankar rout on 26 Oct 2007 at 2:00 pm #
I think this reaserch is exellant. I salute to those scientist who try to reaserch on wireless energy transmission.
G Db on 08 Nov 2007 at 1:40 pm #
WiTricity looks like a strong candidate for wireless power transmission in the home and in the office. I don’t think cancer, static charge build up, etc are significant dangers in this case (no tightly focused beams, no ionizing radiation). What I believe is the major concern is the infrastructure cost and operational cost. WiTri already has 40% efficiency in the lab; it might acheive 99% in the field eventually, but that is a far cry from the potential of a superconducting grid. Furthermore, half-meter devices every five meters, or one foot devices every ten feet means roughly four high-precision (and therefore high cost) devices per small room.
Assuming that there are significant synergy gains (multiple transmitter close by resulting in greater efficiency), one could use centimeter or inch scale devices. With a roughly even distribution, 10 to 100 of these devices in a room, or 3 to 30 per person (embedding several in each piece of clothing, plus cell phone, headset, mp3 player and pda makes this believable). Any smaller will run into the microwave range, and a prohibitively high number of units. Still, multiple devices per person, as well as 10’s of devices in an unoccupied room is an extremely high cost for even just city level coverage. (New York would have an easy time, just a hide a standard transmitter and receiver in all new cell phones. 10-100 transmit only devices per block, or 20 to a story for buildings over 3 stories, and instant city-wide mesh-grid in less than five years). Lower population densities would need more repeaters, or much bigger repeaters. Where I live, making a device the size of my house (embed a loop in the walls that circumscribes the house) would be insufficient to link to any of my neighbors, and only other house sized devices could be linked to by this device.
All of this requires government level standardization; truly pervasive levels of use would require potentially campaign breaking levels of funding across multiple administrations. Hybrid tech (new electrical outlets, lights, and cell phones with embedded WiTri), would be the best route, but it would likely require either mandates or subsidies to be effective.
The craziest solution would be a WiFi/WiTri or a BlueTooth/WiTri repeater built into fluorescent (or LED) light bulbs. Current LiIon batteries wear out at the same rate as cheap fluorescent light bulbs, and wireless tech is sufficiently volatile to require replacement every few years at the minimum.
Synergy effects come into play with hard wired, battery-backed, spatially distributed micro-controllers. (Can we say multiply redundant security, climate control, and system health 24-7 monitor, as well a built in computation-grid and emergency power source, that is dutifully maintained every two years just by replacing burned out light bulbs, all for the cost of lights, wireless network, and emergency power hardware.
Francisco on 09 Nov 2007 at 5:37 pm #
I think is fantastic to say the least. Perhaps it might not take off to the point of powering your entire house with it, but it could surely come in handy at a certain area in your house where you use and charge your laptop, mp3 player and cellphone all at the same time.
Ken Clive on 08 Dec 2007 at 4:30 pm #
This is a great idea. However, I probably could not see this powering large appliances, televisions, or desktop computer systems. However, this would be great for small things like lights, fans, and portable electronics. I love how MIT is not ignoring the amazing work Tesla did many years ago with wireless transmissions.
maricel on 18 Feb 2008 at 9:39 am #
i really like this study….it’s sounds interesting..