‘WiTricity’ beams power across a room

Posted by Dennis Sellers Jun 8, 2007 at 11:21am

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a way of “beaming” power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables, according to The Daily Mail.

The researchers call their their invention “WiTricity” and believe it could change the way we use electricity and do away with the tangle of cables, plugs and chargers that clutter modern homes. It could also allow the use of laptops, iPods and mobile phones without batteries. Scientists have known for nearly two centuries that it’s possible to transfer an electrical current from one coil of wire to another without them touching.

The phenomenon, called electromagnetic induction, is used in power transformers and electric motors around the world. However, the coils in motors and transformers have to be close for power to pass from one to another. Attempting to transfer power over distances is impossible.

The Daily Mail reports that the WiTricity breakthrough came when Dr. Marin Soljacic, lead researcher on the project, realized there was another way of transferring energy through the air. Rather than sending power from a transmitter to a receiver as a conventional electromagnetic wave—the same form of radiation as light, radio waves and microwaves—he could use the transmitter to fill a room with a “non-radiative” electromagnetic field.

In a proof of concept demonstration of the technology MIT researchers were able to light a 60W light bulb from a power source seven feet away with no physical connection between the source and the lamp. You can read more about WiTricityi here.

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