Spare Wi-Fi Signals Charge Batteries
Image: laughingsquid/Flickr
A new article has been published by Fiona MacDonald in www.sciencealert.com on June 9th, 2015.
She says, “Researchers in the US have tweaked a regular Wi-Fi router and made it capable of continuously powering a battery-free surveillance camera. Even better, their work didn’t interfere with the router’s data transfer speeds.”
As you know, electromagnetic waves does not only transport information, they also transport energy. Especially in populated areas, electromagnetic waves are all around. Mobile phone, Tv and radio signals are continuously bombarding us. Some of these waves can be harvested in order to charge a battery, theoretically. In reality, it was only a dream.
However, a team of researchers from the University of Washington solved the problem by programming a router to broadcast noise even it was not transmitting information. By using this method, they succeeded to recharge some coin-cell batteries at distances of up to nine meters.
The researchers published their work in arXiv.org.
Wireless energy transformation for electronic devices will be a new standard for us in the very new future.
ahmet aksoy
References:
http://www.sciencealert.com/a-camera-has-successfully-been-powered-using-spare-wi-fi-signals
http://www.mouser.com/applications/rf_energy_harvesting/