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

Oh this is going to look cool

[ColdWetDog]

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.

I'm having a little trouble here with the concept. Instead of small white box plugged into the wall we have these freaking huge copper wires running in circles everywhere. Just doesn't jibe with the trendy iPod image.

Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things?

Re:Oh this is going to look cool

[vertinox]

Just paint the copper wires white.

power consumption

[mehrotra.akash]

what is the power consumption of the transmitting coil when there is no load coil, also, does the power consumption increase or decrease based on the number of receiving coils??

and, what happens if you place a HDD, or your phone contains a HDD and is charged using this method, wont the magnetic field damage the magnetic media??

similarly, magnetic fields can mess up CRT's, try taking a magnet to a CRT screen..

Re:Pacemakers?

[vertinox]

Pacemakers lol?

If you think replacing a battery on an iPhone is hard, try replacing your own pacemaker battery.

Already have wireless power....

[Itninja]

....it's called 'using batteries'. With a 3 meter range and relatively huge copper coils involved, how is this better that using batteries? Most devices use a transformer to customize the input for the device. With wireless power, would each device need some kind of special wireless receiver/transformer? And this would be better how?

Re:Already have wireless power....

[MBGMorden]

Um, this wasn't touted as a replacement for batteries. It was touted as a replacement for charging cables. IE, when I get home I throw my cell phone on the desk and it starts charging, rather than having to plug it into a cord.

Personally, I CAN see some benefit to that concept. Not the least of which is that I just plain forgot to plug in my phone sometimes, but I ALWAYS sit it on the desk when I get home. It would also just clear up some of the clutter (I'm up to 4 different cables sitting on my desk now - a generic USB extension, a mini-USB connector, a cell phone charger, and an iPod connector).

That said, every wireless power transmission scheme I've seen was EXTREMELY inefficient. Unless the technology could be made to work in the same ballpark efficiency as our current wired methods, I just don't see it as a good long term solution. If it was just a case though of "Yeah, we figured it out. Want one?" though then I'd be first in line.

Re:Already have wireless power....

[lobiusmoop]

FTFA:
"the type of radiation shared between the two coils is nonradiative,"

which I take to mean 'no more than a few Watts of power are involved', which is fine for mobile phones and the like I suppose.

Test for other sources

[Lev13than]

Did they ensure that the iPod speakers were properly shielded against RDF interference? Now that Jobs is getting his strength back, I fully expect that Apple devices will discard with batteries completely and just feed off his sheer willpower.

Re:Pacemakers?

[abigor]

I saw a documentary called Iron Man where this was done.

Efficiency?

[juanergie]

Anybody familiar with the efficiency of this process? What fraction of the wattage is lost during transfer?

Wasted Energy

[wjousts]

So in this era of concern about energy supplies, we have a new way to charge our phones that is less efficient and will waste a ton of energy. But at least we won't trip over any cables.

We need a standard for this

[Animats]

There are at least four schemes for short-range wireless power transmission around. This needs to be standardized so it can be deployed.

The very short range ones, which couple a tabletop pad to a device on it, would be most useful. All the little stuff that needs recharging should be on the same system, with recharging pads in bedroom, office, hotel room, car, airline tray table, Starbucks, etc. Unless the players get together and agree on a standard, this is going nowhere.

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.