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Flexible, Plastic Sheets of Power
bethr writes "Imagine never having to plug in an electronic device to get power? Researchers at the University of Tokyo have demonstrated prototype plastic sheets with copper coils that wirelessly supply power to any device that touches its surface. You just put down your laptop and the pad sends it power: 'An array of organic transistors that detect the position of the gadget and direct current flow.' Apparently, the researchers had enough time to create a spiffy video of their doll house model, complete with a mini Christmas tree, showing off the technology."
Isn't this kind of like Slashpads?
How efficient are these compared to regular adapter + cable? The lack of a magnetic core may mean your utilities bill goes up x2.
That and this together could make for an interesting tent one day, amongst other things. Add in flexible displays etc and you could be applying for research grants from DoD and DHS. Portable command centers anyone? Portable geek huts?
So.. wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that it would cause serious electrical interference to sensitive devices, such as laptops?
Sigs are for the weak.
Physicists Promise Wireless Power is cooler.... Check the article also to preempt the cancer paranoia comments (aka toxoplasma talk ) and tesla refferences. This looks more like a demo of the organic, flexible transistors. It could be done with more conventional electronics. I don't quite see the point over a magnetic connector or something, either. The mention of "resistance" in TFA should be replaced with "reactance", should it not?
Would be neat if we could put something like this in roads. Vroom! There's already a lot of power near roads. Electric cars that charge as you drive. Refueling is automatic; cars check in at a pay station once a month for a meter read.
Obviously the Tesla effect is not what's interesting here. Its the direction of power to the device that is interesting. You have this big power sheet and it only sends power where there is a device that needs it.
... maybe ...
The obvious place for this power supply is your chair and bed. You can sit down with your cell phone in your pocket and have it recharge while you work at your computer.
The big deal application of this kind of technology is probably computer implants. Its hard to change the batteries of a computer that's embedded in your thigh, but now it can recharge while you sleep.
I see a big market for upholstery and bedding growing out of this device.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
Why should I have X different chargers for my wireless devices? Imagine your desk if this was build into the table... your phone don't need a wire, wireless mice charge no matter where they are located, your keyboard always works, your PDA is charged when placed on the table and so is your laptop. You could have wires for all these things, but if I could avoid having x numbers of cradles and loose wires on my table, I would like that even more. And as I type this, I could imagine other things: Wireless hard disk (with wireless USB) and wireless desktop speakers, just to keep it in the nerd world and what about your desk lamp and the LCD picture frame :-) And you thought that I was done there? When a friend comes over and discovers that his phone is low on battery and your phone charger doesn't fit? Imagine your friend to be able bring "anything" without having to bring any wires at all.
This will also solve allot of the cable clutter under the table. Just think of all the things on your table that needs power and then imagine them without wires... Imagine this build into the walls - your speakers, tv and lights didn't need wires! Well, I don't know how it reacts to a nail, but there might be solutions for this too, like having a device that can sense where these things are placed, so you can go around them with your nails and screws.
Surely I can't be the only one excited about the possibilities with this kind freedom you can have?
Forgive my sophomoric understanding of the science involved here, but I have a few questions to throw out there for the grad students and pedagogues:
First, how does one define the abstraction of the pad detecting, as the parent puts forth, if an object "needs" power? What's to stop it from sending just as much power to a piece of conductive metal, say, a penny, as opposed to a cellular phone?
[As I'm sure someone will naturally assume I'm supposing that a penny is comprised entirely of highly-conductive copper and get didactic on my ass by posting the actual metallurgic composition of a penny, I'll let Wikipedia save us all the trouble: "Copper-plated Zinc: 97.5% Zn, 2.5% Cu".]
The obvious difference, anyway, between a penny and a cell phone battery is that though both have potential to carry a current, one already holds some charge and the other does not. Can this wireless power technology be made to be "smart" enough to unerringly detect the presence of an existing discrepancy in the electromagnetic field and send power in that specific direction? Aren't there several scenarios in which one could confound the machine? For instance, what's to stop someone to foolishly place, say, a bar magnet on the pad? What effect would this have?
Anyway, I'm throwing these questions out there in curiosity, and if anyone can lob a pearl or two back, much appreciated.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
The coils do need to match up, and there are losses for coils running without a primary load (resistance in the coils themselves, for example). For a really large sheet of coils (there are multiple small coils in the sheet), that could add up, and add a thermal load to the space that might not be insignificant.
There are certainly some interesting applications, but the cost will likely be prohibitive for the "electrified wall/floor" in the foreseeable future. Working in the building industry, I can say for certain that the ability to correctly apply this product in a residential setting would require more care that exists in an entire job crew, including the cabinet, trim, and electricians combined. It's taken 10-15 years to get electrical floor heaters - simple resistance lines - to the point where you can trust a tilesetter to put them in, and they still have a pretty good failure rate (better then 1:100, if I had to guess). I'll admit one of my first thoughts after reading the moveable TV was to embed this in drywall. Then I instantly flashed back to how drywall is hung. Yikes.
Still, it would be nice to eliminate docking stations for all my gadgets, and be able to just drop the cell phone/ipod/pda/whatever onto a surface with embedded powered (desk/nightstand) or get it in close contact with the furniture to keep th charge up.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?