Power Your Gadgets Over Wi-Fi From 20 Feet Away - UW Researchers
A team of engineering researchers from University of Washington, Seattle have presented their research work titled 'Powering the Next Billion Devices with Wi-Fi' that talks of how a Wi-Fi router can be used to provide far field wireless power for our gadgets. In their first prototype, for the first time in the world they've shown how Wi-Fi chipsets can power camera sensors or lithium-ion coin-cell batteries from more than 20 feet away. Until now, Wi-Fi receivers have been used to capture information from Wi-Fi radio broadcasts. This research team sought a way to harvest energy from these broadcasts.
The University of Washington engineers connected an antenna to a temperature sensor and put it near a Wi-Fi router so that voltages in the device could be measured to determine the time for which the device could operate on such a remote power source. To make things work as expected, they programmed these devices for broadcasting continuous power to an energy harvesting sensor. Their results showed that temperature sensor could operate at a distance of upto 6 meters.
They tested their results with a camera and even a Jawbone fitness tracker and found that the technology worked with both really well. To test the effects of such new routers, they placed them in a neighbourhood and found that the download speeds of other routers nearby were unaffected.
Not only is the ability to power our gadgets wirelessly a fascinating idea and one much need at the moment, but if it's possible to bring it in mainstream using the existing infrastructure available around us, that would really be the next big thing.
What are your thoughts about this pathbreaking research work? Share with us in comments below.
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The University of Washington engineers connected an antenna to a temperature sensor and put it near a Wi-Fi router so that voltages in the device could be measured to determine the time for which the device could operate on such a remote power source. To make things work as expected, they programmed these devices for broadcasting continuous power to an energy harvesting sensor. Their results showed that temperature sensor could operate at a distance of upto 6 meters.
Not only is the ability to power our gadgets wirelessly a fascinating idea and one much need at the moment, but if it's possible to bring it in mainstream using the existing infrastructure available around us, that would really be the next big thing.
What are your thoughts about this pathbreaking research work? Share with us in comments below.
Source: #-Link-Snipped-#
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