Tweet
Think of WiTricity as antennae that can transmit power ranging from low power to kilowatts in so safe a manner it theoretically could be used to eliminate a lot of the power wiring in a structure. Remember in Forbidden Planet where the power and power meters were un-wired? Not dissimilar.
Now imagine if they built this into roadbeds. The electric car power problem would disappear. Same for the problem of melting ice on roads due to the small amount of heat generated.
Link.... (selections from a 4 page article)
Now imagine if they built this into roadbeds. The electric car power problem would disappear. Same for the problem of melting ice on roads due to the small amount of heat generated.
Link.... (selections from a 4 page article)
If you were to look inside a transformer that takes AC current and transforms it to a low a voltage for your cell phone or laptop, you'd find two coils of wire placed very, very close to each other. One coil creates a magnetic field and it induces one on the other. But if you pull the coils apart just a little bit they stop working because the inductions phenomenon only works over a very short distance.
For example, you can can buy an electric toothbrush that has a coil in it and there is another one in the base and the power is transferred wirelessly, but if you pull the toothbrush out of the base more than just a little bit it stops charging. What Dr. Soljacic figured out was how to separate the coils to a distance greater than the size of the coils.
He published a paper that said, "This is theoretically possible to do and here's the mathematical theory." And nobody believed him. They said, "That's impossible."
So he heard this enough and said to his team, "Let's just implement the theory." And here is a picture of the actual experiment done at MIT showing the whole team sitting between two coils -- we call them resonators because they oscillate at a certain frequency -- with one passing enough energy to the other to light a 60 watt light bulb.
>
Soljacic published a paper in Science magazine and thousands of people, from manufacturers of routers to computer equipment, contacted him. So he thought, let's start a company to commercialize the technology. Our goal in life is not to make end user products under our own brand name, we're going to sell it to OEMs or license the design if the volume is super high.
Run us through some of the potential applications as you see them.
>
Now imagine being able to drive into your garage and your car charges because there's a mat on the floor and a coil on the bottom of your car. You get out and walk away. Or you get to work and they have electric vehicle parking spaces and it's something mounted underneath the pavement that you don't even have to worry about.
Not surprisingly, another big opportunity is with small handheld electronic devices. You have three handheld mobile devices with you here, a camera, recorder and your cell phone. All of them use different types of batteries.
>
Then there are all those fixed electronics devices like television sets, stereos, computer equipment … anything with batteries or cords. And we're doing work with military and factory robots.
>
What is the range of power you can support?
Milliwatts to kilowatts, basically. And distance-wise you can go centimeters to meters. You generally don't do kilowatts over meters.
For example, you can can buy an electric toothbrush that has a coil in it and there is another one in the base and the power is transferred wirelessly, but if you pull the toothbrush out of the base more than just a little bit it stops charging. What Dr. Soljacic figured out was how to separate the coils to a distance greater than the size of the coils.
He published a paper that said, "This is theoretically possible to do and here's the mathematical theory." And nobody believed him. They said, "That's impossible."
So he heard this enough and said to his team, "Let's just implement the theory." And here is a picture of the actual experiment done at MIT showing the whole team sitting between two coils -- we call them resonators because they oscillate at a certain frequency -- with one passing enough energy to the other to light a 60 watt light bulb.
>
Soljacic published a paper in Science magazine and thousands of people, from manufacturers of routers to computer equipment, contacted him. So he thought, let's start a company to commercialize the technology. Our goal in life is not to make end user products under our own brand name, we're going to sell it to OEMs or license the design if the volume is super high.
Run us through some of the potential applications as you see them.
>
Now imagine being able to drive into your garage and your car charges because there's a mat on the floor and a coil on the bottom of your car. You get out and walk away. Or you get to work and they have electric vehicle parking spaces and it's something mounted underneath the pavement that you don't even have to worry about.
Not surprisingly, another big opportunity is with small handheld electronic devices. You have three handheld mobile devices with you here, a camera, recorder and your cell phone. All of them use different types of batteries.
>
Then there are all those fixed electronics devices like television sets, stereos, computer equipment … anything with batteries or cords. And we're doing work with military and factory robots.
>
What is the range of power you can support?
Milliwatts to kilowatts, basically. And distance-wise you can go centimeters to meters. You generally don't do kilowatts over meters.