Intel's Wireless Power Play

(Ed: Vivat Tesla!) Last Thursday, Intel researchers demonstrated 45 research projects, ranging from ray-tracing algorithms for better animation to organic photovoltaics for flexible solar cells, at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, CA. But the project that received the most attention by far was the demo of a wirelessly charged iPod speaker. The speaker was attached to a copper coil with a 30-centimeter diameter, and it was powered by magnetic fields produced from a second coil, with double the diameter, nearly a meter away.

Intel's wireless power project, first announced at the company's developer forum last August, bears a strong resemblance to a project announced by researchers at MIT in 2007, which was featured as one of the TR10 top emerging technologies of 2008. Similar to the MIT project led by Marin Soljacic and the prototypes developed by the spinoff startup WiTricity, the Intel project uses magnetic fields to transfer energy; the type of radiation shared between the two coils is nonradiative, which means that it's confined to a short distance of less than two meters.

The idea of wireless power transfer is, of course, not new. Physicist Nikola Tesla proposed it in the late 19th century. However, funding for his projects ran out at about the same time that the modern world decided to take a wired approach. And for more than a century, wires have done the job well enough. But with the advent of portable electronics that seem to need constant charging, wireless electricity is coming back in style, and researchers are exploring ways to make it practical. In addition, plug-in electric vehicles are another motivating factor, as plugging in a car (or forgetting to plug one in) is a burden that consumers may not want to bear.

There are still a number of engineering challenges, says Schatz, including finding the best way to shrink the coils, which are made of copper, so that they can be integrated easily into devices of various shapes and sizes. But he suspects that his company's products will be on the market within the next 18 months.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22906/