Wireless charging is fun, but the limited range and speed of induction charging makes it more of a gimmick than a useful tool for the moment. Samsung is looking to resolve one of those limitations by using far field energy transfer; their current prototypes are able to reliably transfer power over 40cm but they intend far more. The Register describes the major hurdle for transferring power this way, interference between the antennas because of motion or signal interference significantly reduces the efficiency of power transfer. Take a look at how they propose to solve this issue as well as alternate suggestions from different researchers.
"An alternative approach is far-field energy transfer, which requires two antennas, one sending electromagnetic waves to the other. The receiving antenna then converts this radiation into electric currents."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- The Music Industry Had a Fantastic 2017, Driven by Streaming Revenues @ Slashdot
- Dune HD PRO 4K Premium Compact Media Player Review @ NikKTech
- Microsoft's Spring Windows 10 update is called 'April Update', probably @ The Inquirer
- Apple's magical quality engineering strikes again: You may want to hold off that macOS High Sierra update… @ The Register
- Gmail borkage results in people receiving spam from themselves @ The Inquirer
- Robotics Module Challenge: Build Robot, Win Prizes @ Hack a Day
This just in:
“Uranus Smells
This just in:
“Uranus Smells Like Rotten Eggs” [Yes That’s very stinky]
“If an unfortunate human were ever to descend through Uranus’ clouds, they would be met with very unpleasant and odiferous conditions,” study lead author Patrick Irwin, of Oxford University in England, said in a statement!
Jermey what do you have to say about Uranus!
Wireless charging is too
Wireless charging is too inefficient. The process of transmitting has a lot of loss, and receiving also has a lot of loss.
Even if you can convert the receiving end to be 100% efficient the vast majority of the energy will be wasted unless you can make the transmit extremely directional to where it can exactly cover just the receive antenna.
Technologies such as beamforming are not very efficient either, thus you end up with a system where you have to accept wasting most of your energy.
While things can be improved if wireless charging at a predetermined location such as with inductive charging where the position of the coil and device is always fixed, but if you want freedom of motion, then efficiency drops significantly.