Engineers from
the University of Washington have revealed the use of a wireless device without
a power source, mostly in form of battery.
They claimed
through their research that there is energy present in the air as a result of
TV broadcasts, radio broadcasts, etc. and this presently wasted energy can be
harnessed to power wireless devices.
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| Image: University of Washington |
This new
device uses an ‘ambient backscatter’ which taps into the radio and TV
broadcasts and reflect them to communicate with other and also serve as the
source of power.
“We can
repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of
power and a communication medium,” lead researcher, Shyam Gollakota said.
“It is
hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable
computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks.” the associate
professor of computer science and engineering said.
The researchers
tested the backscatter technique using credit-sized prototype devices placed
within several feet of each other. The devices had antennas which flash an LED
light when it receives communication signal from another device.
It was tested
from different locations to a TV tower, from less than half a mile to about 6.5
miles away.
Although this
research is still in progress, it is expected that it could be used as a smart
sensor in the future. For instance, it could be used to monitor a bridge and
report any case of cracking in the bridge.
It could also
be used for powering smartphones when the battery of the phone is flat.
The research paper
was submitted at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest
Group on Data Communication 2013 where it received the conference’s best paper
award.
Source:
University of Washington
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Wireless device operated without a battery