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July - 2009 - issue > Tech Tracker

Mobiles to Charge on their Own in Standby Mode

Eureka Bharali
Friday, July 3, 2009
Eureka Bharali
Plug-less mobile charging without power will soon be a reality. In the standby mode, which is always considered a nuisance, the cell phone will absorb the waves present in the surroundings to power itself.

The cell phone, developed in the labs of the mobile manufacturing giant Nokia, absorbs the waves transmitted by any object ? like TV, radio, and even the phone. The collected electromagnetic energy from the waves is converted into electrical current, which is then used to recharge the phone's battery.

Nokia’s move to rely on the waves for power is influenced by the previous attempts of Nikola Tesla, 100 years back. The first attempt on wireless energy transmission via radio waves was pioneered by Thomas Edison in 1875, followed by Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla. Tesla’s futile attempt is best recognized of all the others, where the energy transfers from the transmitter to the receiver popularly known as Tesla Coils, via oscillations in the ground. He had attempted to build an intercontinental transmission tower to send power through wireless across the Atlantic. Similar technologies are also seen in the Oyster pay-as-you-go cards used in Australia, which powers itself with the radio waves emitted by the reader devices as the cards are swiped. The Nokia’s energy transmission process, however, does not confine its source of power to any dedicated transmitters; rather the power can be collected from miles away.

The new charging technique, however, is still in its nascent stage. The power required to make or receive a call is around 50 milliwatts, while the researchers at the Nokia lab have been successful in harvesting only a meager five milliwatts. The researchers plan, as a short-term goal, to harvest around 20 milliwatts and unveil the device by the end of December. While this technology is yet to gain foothold, scientists from Texas A&M University and University of Houston are already mulling on talk-powered cell phones. The technology converts mechanical stress like vibrations into electrical energy, which can be achieved by building a certain type of piezoelectric material to a specific thickness of about 21 nanometers.
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