Wireless Electricity Transfer: Now Through 10 cm Block Of Concrete!

The top hurdle in the adoption of #-Link-Snipped-# is the limited range they offer on single battery charge. The engineers at Japan's Toyohashi University of Technology thought of putting the charging plates under the roads and offering unlimited range to the automobiles. At the WTP Wireless Technology Park 2012 at Yokohama, the team demoed transfer of electricity through a block, 10 cm thick, made of concrete typically used in construction of roads.



Team's leader, Prof. Takashi Ohira (Electrical and Electronic information engineering department) has been working on the wireless electricity transfer project for a long time. His research involves electric field coupling (or inductive coupling) for the transmission of power to a running vehicle. The team was able to boost the efficiency of power transfer by about 80 - 90 % and their next target is to sustain the power transmission efficiency through a 20cm block of concrete; which is typically the thickness of concrete layer on roads.

We believe that the wireless transmission technology is going to change the way we use electricity in our day-to-day lives. Imagine having your phone charged automatically on your desk. Imagine having electric vehicle that just doesn't need a halt to charge or change batteries. Quite interesting, isn't it?

Via: #-Link-Snipped-#