Slashdot Mirror


Disney Develops Room With 'Ubiquitous Wireless' Charging (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: The scientific and tech arm of the entertainment giant Disney has built a prototype room with "ubiquitous wireless power delivery" that allows several devices to be charged wirelessly in much the way we get internet access through Wi-Fi. By tapping quasistatic cavity resonance, researchers discovered they could generate magnetic fields inside specially built structures to deliver kilowatts of power to mobile devices inside that structure. "This new innovative method will make it possible for electrical power to become as ubiquitous as WiFi," Alanson Sample, associate lab director and principal research scientist at Disney Research, told Phys.org. "This in turn could enable new applications for robots and other small mobile devices by eliminating the need to replace batteries and wires for charging." All you have to do is be in the room and your device will start charging automatically. And depending on where you are in the room, delivery efficiency can be as high as 95 percent, researchers said. There is one potential issue: you have to not mind being in a room constructed mostly of aluminum, that includes the walls, ceiling and floor. There's a copper pole in the middle of the room, and 15 discrete high quality factor capacitors that separate the magnetic field from the electric field.

22 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. "...depending on where you are in the room..." by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    just sayin'.

  2. I've got one of those rooms at home. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My energy filled room at home is a little smaller, so I only use it for heating up burritos.

    1. Re:I've got one of those rooms at home. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

      Burritos, they are examples of substances that sublimate, right?

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. Re:Tin Foil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh! I bet you'll get a charge out of that!

  4. Only one word.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tesla

  5. I've read this story before by dlleigh · · Score: 5, Informative

    Robert Heinlein's "Waldo": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  6. 95% delivery efficiency, my ass. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously this "delivery efficiency" number is the efficiency after converting the power to RF and before it's converted back into electricity. So basically, 95% is the maximum amount of RF that is intended to hit your phone's charging coil actually will.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:95% delivery efficiency, my ass. by guruevi · · Score: 3, Informative

      The paper says 40%-95%. The heat map indicates 95% would be only right around the center of the room and it drops off quite quickly (exponential, because physics).

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  7. Yea, that's interesting... Not going to work by bobbied · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't take any device that couples magnetic energy in there. No credit cards, no spinning hard disks, a lot of electronic devices will be toasted upon entry and should you happen to have any leftover metal parts from some past surgery (staples, clips, knees or hips) you don't likely want to try and enter either... Figure on having similar entry restrictions as MRI machines, including the faraday shielded room for this thing.. I wonder what a set of wire rimmed glasses will do in there, in fact anything that approximates a loop of wire could have serious issues if it's conductive.

    Basically they put you INSIDE a huge electromagnet with fairly high flux values. They resonate the whole thing to a specific frequency by inserting some capacitance, then size their collector (which is still larger than most cell phones) can collect power from the magnetic fields. Room size will be limited, basically because of the power density required to get useful power transfer is still really high and it will approach unsafe levels as the room gets larger.

    Not to mention... I dare you to grab the center pole.... It's going to have more than hundred amps flowing though it at RF (1.3 Mhz) frequencies that, despite what they say in their "safety" calculations, sure seems to be at power levels that can cause serious RF burns...

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Yea, that's interesting... Not going to work by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      Wouldn't it be nice to pull into the garage, go inside, and the garage charges my car. Nothing to plug in...

      There are much safer and cheaper ways to do this than to turn your entire garage into a high-power magnet. E.g., two plates in the floor that match two contacts on the bottom of your car to provide charging power. Or a coil in the floor that aligns with a coil on the car for a more focused transfer of energy.

      Or drive a regular car. When I pull into my garage there is nothing to plug in. I have a patent on that no-plug system.

  8. capacitors... by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

    capacitors that separate the magnetic field from the electric field.

    What the actual flux?

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  9. Tesla (not the car company) by subk · · Score: 4, Informative

    A century ago, Nikola Tesla was convinced he could do this over great distances using broadcast towers (for lack of a better term). Due to what essentially amounts to corporate sabotage of his endeavors, we never got to find out if he was right.

    --
    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    1. Re:Tesla (not the car company) by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      "corporate sabotage" <------- I'm going to use that excuse when my startup fails.

      Physics says there is no way he could have done it without huge power losses, so basically you're hoping he had invented new physics but hadn't told anyone about it. Which would be cool.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Tesla (not the car company) by subk · · Score: 2

      Of course what little we know about his work is also part speculation, so I consider Tesla's esoteric & unrealized works a mere curiosity. Meanwhile, the tinfoil hat crowd takes any rumor of Tesla's success as if it were written in stone by divine actor(s) and delivered to Moses on a mountain. It's all somewhat paradoxical; on the one hand he developed real-world, usable tech like alternating current motors and generators, while on the other hand claiming that he knew these things because he could tap into a universal, ethereal body of knowledge that exists in another dimension. You have to take his work seriously while still being aware that the man was possibly quite mad.

      --
      Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    3. Re:Tesla (not the car company) by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      That sounds like some kind of shamanistic stuff. Get in a trance, travel to the center of the world, get taught while there. Or he was hitting the mescaline. Searching online, it seems like Tesla was extreme in anti-drugs, so probably not. However, his homeland of Serbia seems to have been steeped in shamanistic tradition, so he could have picked it up there. Someone went wild on that wikipedia page, there's a lot of information.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  10. That metal pole by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

    Get a charge in a room with a central metal pole.
    Bring on the dancer.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  11. Inside the battery by holophrastic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, aluminum walls, alluminum floors, copper pole in the middle -- I do believe that's actually a battery, using the air as the electrolyte. I think I might be staying out of that room.

  12. Yay, more elecromagnetic fields by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    "you have to not mind being in a room constructed mostly of aluminum, that includes the walls, ceiling and floor."

    Which means you also have to not mind being in a room where you're bombarded with lots of intense electrostatic and electromagnetic fields, which I doubt is good for anyone, especially infants and toddlers. Close proximity to electrostatic or electromagnetic fields on a long-term basis is NOT good for you, period.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:Yay, more elecromagnetic fields by Kielistic · · Score: 2

      You should apply your brilliant scientific methodology to the practice of injecting live viruses and mercury into infants and toddlers. You could start a new movement!

  13. What??? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "discrete high quality factor capacitors that separate the magnetic field from the electric field."

    What the fuck? That's NOT the way this shit works. This is utter nonsense.

    For the record, capacitors DO NOT "separate the magnetic field from the electric field". No. No no no.

    This is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  14. Name? by kackle · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are they calling the exhibit "The Cancer Of Tomorrow"?

  15. Re:Efficiency? by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

    What does efficiency matter if it saves you from having to plug in.

    Think about it...

    You don't have to plug it in

    I don't think that you are thinking hard enough about this. Imagine never being inconvenienced to find a plug in the dark to chard you smartphone. And think of all the boxes of mismatched cables that you have. The infomercials write themselves with all the advantages. That's worth an extra $20 a year in additional power bills easily.