Exploring Wireless Power: Research and Startups for Cordless Electronic Charging

[ElectroPhysics]

My question is how to generate wireless power i.e. cordless power to power up electronic/electrical equipments. Any link to research that has done on it & other startup links. How can you help me learn about it as early as possible.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

I will be back on next monday to see the thread.

Best Regards

 

[Danger]

Batteries.

Or do you mean transmitted wireless power?

 

[russ_watters]

There are a number of ways to do it, but there isn't anything that is really feasible. What exactly is the purpose of this?

 

[ElectroPhysics]

...Or do you mean transmitted wireless power?

I mean, as an example to power up the television set without using power cord connected to 220V/110V ac wall socket.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

There are a number of ways to do it, but there isn't anything that is really feasible. What exactly is the purpose of this?

It is a research oriented project and we will hopefully get funding for that.

 

[Danger]

All that I can think of that would be applicable on that scale would be the aforementioned batteries, built-in generators, or inductive pickups. The SPS beamed-power proposals use microwaves, but you don't want to be messing about with that stuff in your living room.

 

[moose]

Well, there are radio sets which don't have any batteries. The strength of the radio wave is sufficient for (faint) music/whatever.Other than this, why don't we use about 100 million volts... that should be able to travel about ten meters... heh

 

[ElectroPhysics]

All that I can think of that would be applicable on that scale would be the aforementioned batteries, built-in generators, or inductive pickups. The SPS beamed-power proposals use microwaves, but you don't want to be messing about with that stuff in your living room.

As I mentioned before my research will be wireless based i.e. on electromagnetic waves.

 

[Cliff_J]

ElectroPhysics - what type of power level and distance between transmitter/receiver are you talking about?

 

[russ_watters]

Well, it looks like about 200w and about 5m...

 

[russ_watters]

Have a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectenna

You could also just point a laser at a solar cell.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

ElectroPhysics - what type of power level and distance between transmitter/receiver are you talking about?

The transmitter should able to provide sufficient energy to power up all the equipments e.g. present in a house and should cover the range of this house.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

You could also just point a laser at a solar cell.

The equipments are not fixed in a place and as stated earlier we have to find its electromagnetism based solution.

 

[russ_watters]

Omnidirectional power transmittance requires an enormous amount of power, since the vast majority doesn't go to what you are powering, but, rather, is absorbed by other objects, the air, etc.

 

[hitssquad]

You could simply turn the entire house into a walk-in microwave oven. That would work. Any person trying to watch TV in that house would cook and smolder, though.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

I will appreciate if some body send me a link to MS or PhD thesis regarding this topic.

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry, I don't think you're going to find what you are looking for. It just isn't a feasible idea.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

I agree with you only by feasibility point of view. Many things were not possible in the past that exist today. My research can provide some clues or hints to achieve it for future generations. Today we live the life that our ancestors has just imagined and struggled for. I will do this research for the benefits of next generations.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

I think it will be the main research area in near future

 

[ElectroPhysics]

See you next monday

 

[russ_watters]

What I meant was you won't find research papers on the subject, but I also don't think you'll have much success in general. There are some fundamental reasons (like what hitssquad said) that the very idea is not feasible.

The only way around cooking everyone who gets near it is using a phased array - and they are big.

 

[Integral]

If you do some basic research you will reject out of hand a solution involving a general broadcast of power simply because it is not efficient. The very definition of broadcast implies large losses. You would be doing very well to recover 10% of your broadcast power. This says that to deliver 20KW you would need to broadcast 200KW. In this day and age, the need is for efficient use of power, this is a step in the wrong direction.

 

[Smasherman]

You can go to wikipedia and read up on tesla for some background in this subject. It's apparently possible and has been tried, but not terribly efficient (as Integral said).

 

[waht]

Nikola Tesla invented the Tesla coil to transmit power wirelessly, he did transmit 30,000 watts of power which could lite up nearby neon lights. However, the radio interference and millions of volts associated with his coil did not prove useful.

You could trasmit power using high power lasers, but that is very inefficient. Right now, alkaline battaries and a power cord is the way to go.

 

[Integral]

Every time you watch broadcast TV or Radio you are utilizing broadcast energy. Consider that your local station broadcasts MegaWatts and you receive milliWatts, this factor of 9 orders of magnitude is why you do not want to broadcast power. There is no research to be done on this, it was done long ago, there is nothing new to be learned or discovered in this field we understand it very well.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

Oooook. Let me do it.At least I will learn the art of utilizing electromagnetics!

 

[Cliff_J]

electrophysics - this is really simple. Let's say you have a big can of cake frosting that can easily cover one cake. What if you tried to make it cover 10 cakes? It would need to be a really really thin layer of frosting.

A spherical wave is going to have the same total energy just like the can of cake frosting has a total amount. Except the area of the spherical wave (how many cakes to cover) is determined by the square of the distance. Since the amount of energy is the same but the surface area is bigger, the amount of energy per area is much smaller (like thinner layer of frosting).

If you start at an inch, by the time you get to a foot you have 144x less energy. Using a microwave or laser that allows you to focus the energy would be much better any you still would not want to be around that since it would cook anything in its path.

Magnetism is quite difficult to focus and distance will prove to be near impossible to overcome unless you're thinking of a couple cm at best.

What application would this research be aimed at?

 

[ElectroPhysics]

What application would this research be aimed at?

The main idea is not to use any power cord at all with laptops.

 

[ElectroPhysics]

It is a business oriented research, to make money.

 

[russ_watters]

Your best bet would probably be a parabolic transmitter and receiver for microwaves, but be aware that you'd heat up anything in the beam's path. And this simply cannot be done omnidirectionally. Plus, the components would be pretty big - bigger than the laptop. I just don't think it's a feasible idea at all.

Sorry.

 

[Don J]

I will appreciate if some body send me a link to MS or PhD thesis regarding this topic.

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccS1-4.html

Nikola Tesla. had discovered a process which could transmit almost unlimited amounts of electrical energy to any place on Earth with negligible losses. He had managed to estimate the resonant frequency of the Earth-to-ionospheric cavity at 150KC. It was a good guess; but one which has later proved not as efficient as possible because the cavity resonance changes from moment to moment - depending on solar wind densities and sunspot activity.

The United States has a very low-frequency transmitter located at the South Pole. It is similar to Tesla's process - except that it can be tuned to a frequency in the range of 7Hz. Even-numbered super harmonics of this frequency such as 14,336Hz (two to the eleventh power times 7Hz) have been used by both the U.S. Navy's VLF transmitter at Australia's Northwest Cape and the American Defence Advanced Research Project Agency's VLF facility at Pine Gap in the dead centre of Australia.

To tap the energy of such a broadcast requires the construction of a tunable Tesla coil which either operates at 14.3KHz or some even super harmonic of it. Of course, the higher the harmonic the coil is tuned to, the lower will be the power received in an inverse proportion to the increased frequency. The Testa coil's 'primary' would be the high-voltage, inner coil, in this instance, as the voltage will need to be stepped-down. The total length of the wire used in the primary should equal either the full or one quarter wavelength of the resonant harmonic chosen. The secondary should have the equivalent in ampere-turns. Placing a resistive load (like a filament light globe) across the secondary (which should be vertically movable to allow tuning of the inductive coupling of the coils) should indicate to the observer when the system is receiving by its glow. The main problem will be guessing the incoming voltage level. Depending on the field density, it could be as high at 500 Megavolts... which could produce problems... However, if the harmonic chosen is high enough, the effective voltage will drop considerably.

 

[russ_watters]

That a Tesla coil can be used to transmit electricity globally with negligible losses is quit simply a myth. I'll leave the link up for now, but it is just plain crackpottery and conspiracy theory.

 

[Don J]

Why not build the coil which is suppose to catch the energy transmitted by the alleged source.
This not seem so difficult to built.

To tap the energy of such a broadcast requires the construction of a tunable Tesla coil which either operates at 14.3KHz or some even super harmonic of it. Of course, the higher the harmonic the coil is tuned to, the lower will be the power received in an inverse proportion to the increased frequency. The Testa coil's 'primary' would be the high-voltage, inner coil, in this instance, as the voltage will need to be stepped-down. The total length of the wire used in the primary should equal either the full or one quarter wavelength of the resonant harmonic chosen. The secondary should have the equivalent in ampere-turns. Placing a resistive load (like a filament light globe) across the secondary (which should be vertically movable to allow tuning of the inductive coupling of the coils) should indicate to the observer when the system is receiving by its glow. The main problem will be guessing the incoming voltage level. Depending on the field density, it could be as high at 500 Megavolts... which could produce problems... However, if the harmonic chosen is high enough, the effective voltage will drop considerably.

Edited working link 1899 experiment images and description
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_colspr.html

Picture of the tower used during experiment
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/images/td_tower02.jpg

Bulb glowing in ground
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/images/cs_glight02.jpg
"Caption in Century Magazine, June 1900, reads: "The photograph shows three ordinary incandescent lamps lighted to full candle-power by currents induced in a local loop consisting of a single wire forming a square of fifty feet each side, which includes the lamps, and which is at a distance of one hundred feet from the primary circuit energized by the oscillator."

 

[Skyhunter]

[deleted] Yes, skyhunter, that is part of the conspiracy theory. This is the engineering forum and we don't discuss conspiracy theory here.