The concept of Wireless Power has been in news for some time now. Lot of researchers have been working to find a breakthrough in the system to be able to charge the electronic devices without the aid of wires. A team from MIT came up with the concept of WiTricity ( as in Wireless Electicity) and demonstrated it by lighting a 60W electrical bulb that was wirlessly connected to the power source seven feet away. The concept has been based on magnetic resonance by which electromagnetic energy is transmitted to those receivers that have the identical resonant frequencies as the transmitting device.

With magnetic resonance as the base, Sony Corporation has developed a prototype system that can transmit 60W electricity to a a device situated at about 50-80 cms away. The power transmission between the transmission and the recipient devices is 80% efficient. When a rectifier circuit is included, the efficieny is still 60%. Sony has built a repeater device that can increase the transmission range. The repeater device, being a passive component, is placed between the transmitting and the receieving devices to relay magnetic resonance.

So the time is not very far away when one can have a clutter-free TV set hooked onto the wall. And the countdown for a complete wireless world has begun.

Haier’s wireless TV is not available in the market yet but it is an indication of what is coming. Televisions have already gotten ultra slim and can produce HD video without using very little space in your living room. However, TVs are still somewhat “wired” and you connect the DVD players, power cords and other cables although you could use some costly alternatives to reduce to the clutter to some extent. It is a good sign that manufacturers are coming up with electronics without cables.

Wireless Powered TV

The wireless power system was supplied to Haier was developed by Witricity. Power transfer is made possible through a coil on the back of the TV that receives power from another device plugged into a wall socket that resonates and the energy is transferred using a magnetic near field.

This TV also features Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI), which can stream 1080p content at 3 Gbps. It works at distances up to about 100 feet away. So there’s no need for video input cables either. The company did not provide a time-line for a consumer release. It appears it may take 6 months to an year before you can purchase it for your home.

This product was chosen to receive a 2010 CES “Product of the Future Award” from POPULAR SCIENCE.

The technology at the core of WiTricity’s approach is called magnetic coupled resonance, which can provoke an energetic response at a distance between two coils, one powered, the other not. If the two coils are correctly tuned to one another, energy flows from the connected one (installed, say, on the ceiling of a room) into the other (inside, say, your laptop). Giler presented a demo of it at TEDGlobal  2009.

Sony has developed a prototype power system that can send enough electricity to power a television set wirelessly over a short distance, it said Friday. In tests the company succeeded in sending a conventional 100 volt electricity supply over a distance of 50 centimeters to power a 22-inch LCD television.

Sony makes the point with data transfer rapidly becoming a wireless endeavour; demand for wireless power is also growing. Dell showed off its wireless charging dock last week, but the power has a very short distance to travel. What Sony is trying to do is another thing entirely.

There were no indications given about when this technology might make an appearance in the wild, but Sony attempted to whet appetites with this image of a claimed prototype. Sony hasn’t set a release date for gadgets containing the new technology, but it it expected to be released to the market in the next 6 months.

The system achieves this feat through magnetic resonance. A power supply feeds electricity into a square coil of wires 40 cm across, called the primary coil, to produce a magnetic field. When a secondary coil is brought within the magnetic field this causes a current to be induced and so the electricity transfer is completed

BBC News reports that -

“For a few years now the idea of wireless power has been a shining light in the lives of gadgeteers, whose homes resemble cable repositories. At the TED Global 2009 conference this week, it got one step closer. Eric Giler, chief executive of Witricity unveiled the concept which is based on an idea by MIT’s Marin Soljacic and exploits the resonance of low frequency electromagnetic waves.

The system uses two coils, one at the mains and one on the gadget, both of which have been engineered with the same resonant frequency. When connected up to an electricity supply, the mains coil produces a magnetic field that resonates with the second coil, allowing voltage to build up to power the gadget. The technology could even be used for electric cars, which could be charged up from a mat placed beneath its wheels in the garage.

Giler showed off a TV and two phones — a Google G1 and an iPhone — which had been adapted to use the technology. He did, however, admit that the Cupertino product had been a harder nut to crack. “They don’t make it easy at Apple to get inside their phones so we put a little sleeve on the back,” he said. There had even, he added, been a proposal for an electrically-heated dog bowl. “You go from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

The complete report which has video demo and detailed analysis about wireless electricity can be accessed from here

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It says the fierce competition between manufacturers of mobile devices is also accelerating the introduction of wireless charging. The star of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, an annual jamboree held in Las Vegas, was the Pre, a snazzy smart-phone from Palm (pictured left). As well as the standard arsenal of technical features—touch-screen, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and built-in camera—the Pre also has an optional charging pad, called the Touchstone, which uses electromagnetic induction to charge the device wirelessly. When the device is placed on the pad, the two recognise each other through built-in sensors. Magnets embedded in the pad align the handset and hold it in place during charging.

According to the article, Palm was not the only exhibitor in Las Vegas promoting wireless charging. Fulton Innovation, another member of the Wireless Power Consortium and the eventual owner of Splashpower’s assets, used the show to unveil a number of products including an in-car console equipped with inductive coils that can wirelessly charge mobile devices while on the road. (BMW says it will offer its 7 Series cars in South Korea with a wireless-recharging dock for one of Samsung’s handsets.) A modified toolbox from Bosch demonstrated the potential for wirelessly charging power tools.

Other domestic applications in the works include embedding charging pads into kitchen counters to enable the wireless use of blenders and other appliances. Bret Lewis of Fulton Innovation says his firm’s technology could also be used for industrial applications, or to charge electric cars. For the time being, however, the focus is on mobile phones, laptops and other consumer devices, and he sees 2009 as “the year for wireless”. That is probably too ambitious, but a third recent development suggests that the commercialisation of inductive charging may not be far off.

In November 2008 TI announced that it had joined forces with Fulton Innovations “to accelerate development of efficient wireless power solutions”. TI, which provides components to many of the world’s leading mobile-phone makers said it was exploring the production of integrated circuits that supported the technology developed by Fulton Innovations, with the aim of reducing the cost and size of the components needed for wireless charging and making it easier for device-makers to incorporate them into their products quickly.

As wireless-charging equipment based on electromagnetic induction heads towards the market, a number of alternative technologies are also being developed to transmit power over both short and long distances. WildCharge, a start-up based in Colorado, has already started selling a number of wireless-charging devices that take a cheaper but simpler approach in which mobile devices make electrical contact with a special charging pad via four small conductive metal studs

Link to the article: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13174387