Intel Demos Wireless "Resonant" Recharging

Al writes "Last Thursday researchers from Intel demonstrated a way to recharge electronics from about meter away using a 'resonant' magnetic field. At an event held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, the researchers showed off a pair of iPod speakers connected to a 30-centimeter-wide copper coil that received power from a similar, but larger, copper coil about a meter away. The recharging technique relies on a phenomenon called resonant coupling, in which objects can exchange energy when tuned to resonate at the same frequency. A similar approach was developed by researchers at MIT in 2007, and spun off into a company called WiTricity. This company has already developed a few products that use resonant coupling to recharge, including a car battery."

Comments

Nothing new here

[kpainter]

A company I worked for was charging the batteries in medical implants in this manner 10 years ago. In fact, the implant's charge coil is inside its Titanium case. The magnetic field goes right through the case. The charger had a class E amplifier. It worked very well. I would not doubt if this company already has a patent on this technique.