Imagine walking into a room and your phone suddenly beeps with a green LED flashing at the corner indicating a wireless charging source is available in the vicinity. Your handphone/iPod/moblie device then asks you to allow/deny charging. You press “ALLOW” and your phone is wirelessly charging. With wireless power, you can not only eliminate wires but you can eliminate the reliance on batteries as well (if the technology becomes that advanced).
My last post on wireless power charging was on Wildcharge, showcasing its charging pad at the CES 2008. Is the same exhibition, there were a few other wireless charging competitors that offered the same charging experience. So what is the future of wireless charging?
Although the wireless charging systems in CES 2008 aren’t as sophisticated as mentioned above, it had gotten pretty close. Powercast (who has been working on wireless charging since last year) is able to achieve power transmission for quite a distance as shown in the video below. Powercast uses RF (Radio Frequency) technology to actually beam EM waves in a direction to a transreceiver which then converts the EM waves back to electricity. Powercast claims that their transreceiver allows for better efficiency in receiving and converting the transmitted EM waves back to electricity. The Powercast display at the CES 2008 booth however, showed the technology powering up only small devices. On top of that, it is a uni-directional beaming of EM waves that allows the transfer of power. Move the transreceiver away from the beam, the power decays to zero. Although this is neat, it wouldn’t be much of a practical use I guess.
Fulton Innovation, a new comer to wireless charging, showcased their technology at the CES 2008 which seems to have more practical use. Unlike Powercast, Fulton uses inductive coupling (similar to Wildcharge) to power up their devices. The thing about Fulton’s technology which I like is the intelligence that the transmitting source possesses. It is able to adapt to different kind of power needs from different power devices. This allows better source-to-load efficiency by not blasting all the power to free space. Another thing that I love about this technology is the ability to power up loads up to 1.5KWh at 98.6% efficiency! That’s pretty amazing for a wireless power charging system! The devices that we’ve seen so far were only able to power up smaller devices. Thus, Fulton has a huge potential to go on.
Source: PCPRO.co.uk
There are many problems associated transferring power wirelessly. One of them is efficiency. Magnetic coupling seems to have a better efficiency output (maybe due to the close proximity of the source and load) as compared to the RF technology.
Another problem to overcome is safety. There will be fears of whether electricity can be transfered to any metallic object in the vicinity of the source, especially for the products that uses magnetic coupling. On top of that, would transferring power over the air cause any health concerns? Electromagnetic waves do interact with the environment as it propagates in free space.
Lastly, will magnetic coupling destroys your HDD, credit cards or any cards with a magnetic strip? It seems to work well with HDD from the video but they never really explain whether it will affect cards with magnetic strips.
So which direction will wireless charging go? Mobility through RF technology or high powered and high efficiency transmission through e-coupled technology? The beauty of technological advances - You can’t have the best of both worlds. Maybe it is too early to tell. We’ll find out soon enough!
23 responses so far ↓
1 Alan // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:10 am
Whatever direction it goes, they need to pick a single standard and go with it. One of the big advantages to this idea is not having to have a bazillian different wall warts for every separate device. Usually unlabeled so that 6 months later, you have no idea what goes with what if you haven’t rigorously kept things together and/or labeled them yourself, not to mention having to lug around a few kilos of the things when you travel.
The last thing we need is for them to beta/vhs us so some things need this charger and some need the other charger. If you get it wrong 6 months later, you’ve got a device you absolutely needed charged and you put it on the wrong pad, leaving you stranded high and dry.
2 firdooze // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:14 am
I guess that’s one concern I left out. But the thing is that I have no idea how strong the magnetic field produced by the e-coupled system. Given that magnetic field decays with the square of the distance away from the source, the magnetic field could just be negligible from a distance.
For the case of MRI scanners, the B-field is really strong. Then again, any magnetic field could be detrimental to the those with pacemakers.
3 Tommy // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:31 am
Tesla did this over 100 years ago. Doing this magnetically or RF is yawns-ville. Telsa did this on a scale that could have powered a city using a, now suppressed, technology of radiant energy.
4 Rick Spielman // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:31 am
The potential problems noted above really are not as serious as implied. The magnetic coupling systems described (originally invented 100 years ago by Tesla) are “resonant” systems. The background magnetic fields are very low. Only in the case where the receiver is resonant with the transmitter do the fields build up in the receiver and are effective power levels transmitted. The background magnetic fields for routine magnetic coupling applications can be the same order as the fields routinely seen from the AC lines in a home of business.
Finally: when no receiver is nearby no power is expended in magnetic coupling systems - unlike EM transmission systems in which energy is transmitted into free space and must be captured or lost.
5 Andrew Wilson // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:33 am
Looks cool!
One thing not mentioned (particuarly with the magnetic induction system) is how pacemakers are affected.
At least with MRI scanners there are notices everywhere about people with pacemakers. If these things become widespread people with pacemakers are going to have to avoid a lot of places.
6 Kevin F // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:35 am
Wow, a hundred year old idea still not solved. People should take note of the works of Nikola Tesla, the inventor of the AC power system, motors, and wireless transmission of power! Dubbed to be a bit of a nut by the freemason idiot Thomas Edison, Tesla’s project for wireless transmission was stopped by JP Morgan because they had no way of controlling the FREE frequency of power set out by the tower they were constructing. Rumor has it Tesla set off the device prior to it being taken down, and that power is still available today… someone just needs to know the frequencies and how to recreate the receiver box Tesla demonstrated in his Electric Car (Modified Pierce-Arrow). We can’t begin to fathom the genius of these men trumped by greedy corporate America.
7 firdooze // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:41 am
Well Tesla invented magnetic resonance power transfer but they made it into something practical (well maybe) and marketed it. haha..
8 Dave // Jan 11, 2008 at 3:03 am
Another concern in the US is RF interference to licensed services. What frequencies are used for power transfer?
9 Ugly American // Jan 11, 2008 at 3:08 am
Tesla’s system did work and he demonstrated a wirelessly powered electric car.
His own financial backers got the government to seize and destroy the transmitting towers.
Why? Tesla’s backers included JP Morgan and Tesla’s wireless electric system competed directly with Morgan’s oil interests and had no way to meter and bill end users.
Tesla’s stand was that hydro (he invented and built the first large hydro power system in the world at Niagra Falls) and wind power belong to everyone and should be shared - a view not to popular with moneyholics.
10 David // Jan 11, 2008 at 4:16 am
Yeah, I’d probably stay away from it for a while. Though I hate them, I usually carry a cell phone for emergencies and it’s usually off anyway. Why do I hate them? The RF frequencies have been noted to sometimes increase chances of cancer and can also increase the risk of sterility. That’s a cell phone, what would electricity do? Especially powering a computer, monitor, sound system, TV, printer, etc. I think I’m gonna stick with cabled power for now…and maybe for quite a while.
11 Russell Albert // Jan 11, 2008 at 4:49 am
But will it fry my brain and give me cancer?
12 Tech // Jan 11, 2008 at 4:50 am
The thing that you fail to mention:
The first product would be potentially useful for long range source to device power.
The second would only be good if the charger and computer are essentially touching each other.
I couldn’t help but feel that the writer was biased towards the second one mainly because of the efficiency number. In the future we could put satellites near the sun and beam energy to the earth using method 1. Fulton’s technology appears to be a wireless outlet. But you still don’t really solve any problems (except that you don’t need the ubiquitous charger plug in that most devices use unfortunately they still need to plug something in to most of them so it voids that arguement). You still need a wire running from your wireless outlet to the table you put your laptop on. Its a baby step forward. I think the first demonstration was far more revolutionary.
13 jenningsthecat // Jan 11, 2008 at 5:42 am
A note on firdooze’s second post: Actually, magnetic field intensity, (as well as the H-field of a radio antenna) falls as the CUBE of the distance. The E-field of a radio antenna, (this is what most people are talking about when they refer to ‘radio waves’), and light, fall off as the square of distance. This is a common error, but since it’s relevant to the discussion I thought I’d mention it.
14 Mikhail // Jan 11, 2008 at 6:37 am
They are trying to reinvent last and biggest but forgotten Tesla’s invention. During whole his life someone else was credited for his work (edison, westinghouse, marconi). That old man died forgotten, betrayed by his friends and bussines partners, spent last days of his life feeding pidgeons in park every day. He was trully crazy but genious. Some secrets of Tesla’s work died with him. Actualy, is is somehow possible to extract energy of earth’s magnetic field. Earth’s rotation and natural magnetic field is in prnciple equal to asynchronous electric motor that was also Tesla’s invention. True science is not either in math or theory but in practical work. You can not understd what you can’t see.
15 Wireless Power coming soon | Rick Tech // Jan 11, 2008 at 8:46 am
[…] the ground level several companies are doing the same thing. CES 2008 has two competing examples of wireless power at the cell phone/pda/laptop level, possibly making these units really […]
16 Ken // Jan 11, 2008 at 10:15 am
You call Fulton a newcome to wireless power but in fact their wireless power technology has been deployed in a commercial product for several years and has passed safety tests around the world. What’s new is that they have licensed the technology to several household name consumer electronics companies that are bringing the technology to market.
17 firdooze // Jan 11, 2008 at 10:43 am
@Tech: Yeah I seemed quit biased. I was quite impressed with the e-coupled technology as compared to Powercast’s RF technology. It seems to me that the former have more practicality than the latter. Thus, I feel currently, the e-coupled technology seems more viable. But that may change in the future.
There was this experiment by a group of MIT guys that managed a mid-range (couple of meters?) power transfer through magnetic resonance. Wonder whether anything will come out from that?
18 firdooze // Jan 11, 2008 at 10:52 am
@Ken: My mistake. I was studying about wireless power transfer last year and the companies that I came across frequently (during my research) were Powercast and Wildcharge. I didn’t know Fulton was already a player.
19 Concerned // Jan 11, 2008 at 2:40 pm
About 5% of total energy is now wasted on equipment on standby mode. Is it really a good idea to contribute to global warming by wasting energy like this?
20 Overheard: Wireless charging demo’d at CES - Overheard in the tech blogosphere // Jan 12, 2008 at 12:48 am
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22 Jonathan // Jan 14, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Nice to see so many people aware of Tesla and his great work.
I don’t have much faith in this companies looking at wireless power transmission doing it in a way that isn’t harmful to Life and to humans and the Earth. Tesla took all that into consideration by choosing frequencies that were conducive to life and not against it. Sadly, even our common 50-60 hertz power system has this issue. Add to this all the insane high-level frequencies we get now with microwave transmission, RF, and so on… now add to this wireless em/electricity transmission… what a mess. I recall Tesla said we shouldn’t be using frequencies above something like 16 hertz.
What a mad world we’ve created for ourselves!!
Joy.
Jonathan
23 Cervello // Jul 11, 2008 at 7:24 am
We could have airplanes flying through the atmosphere indefinitely. We could travel much farther in to space. I’d be willing to wear a helmut that protected against EM waves if we could have other planets readily available for colonization. Its crazy, but I am convinced that we will never find a way to separate ourselves from a constantly depleting energy source. Using a solar panel on a satellite, converting that energy to something transmittable across option 1, at a great distance amplified, we could travel to planets with more resources, such as oil…
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