We all know about wireless charging existing today but the range has always been a problem as we can never get it to exceed a few cm.
However there have been a few innovations within this field allowing users to move further away such as the Qi 1.2 device as the makers say that they have extended this range considerably from previous designs. However a team of researchers at MIT have revealed today a new type of wireless charger called MAGMIMO. This system has gotten them excited as for the overall prospects of this technology would mean real wireless charging! As the system will determine if the phone needs charging and if it deems necessary will send a cone shape signal carrying energy to you device.
The latest version of this technology will allow you phone to be charged up to 30cm away, when in comparison to other wireless chargers this is considerable over the current 1cm – 4cm.At the 30cm mark you can have this built into a bedside table or work desk, just putting your phone upon it will allow it to be charged which is amazing as the other wireless charging types are picky as to where you place your phone.
So how does it work?
MAGMIMO works by using a technology high end WiFi routes use. When a router of this type sees a device trying to connect it will increase the signal strength in order for the user to connect, it even directs this signal in the direction of the user using method called beam forwarding. The researchers at MIT use this type of signal transmission system and instead of using radio waves it uses a magnetic field however this could be a bad thing for those with pacemakers.
The field would focus on the target device and the coils within the emitter will then begin to vary their frequencies to increase the signal strength, then the device being charged would have the technology to convert this magnetic field back into electricity through what’s known as an inductive current. Modern routers today are capable of beam forwarding using radio waves in the direction of the device and soon this technology will become as standard wifi application.
The current rig MIT have set up consists of the iPhone 4S with the receiver coil on the back where there is a wire that connects up to the phones charging port to the induction coils. Ideally this system would be integrated into the phone like the Qi and PMA systems. The team doing the experiment found that it took the MagMIMO 5 hours to fully charge the iphone. Comparing this to current technology the iphone 4S has a 1420mAh battery, so that works out to be just around 284mAh of energy per hour, so at that rate it would take around 10 hours to charge a Galaxy S5, The Qi is currently limited to 5Watts 1Amp output making it about as fast as a low power mains plug, however to charge the modern smartphone they are looking to cut the time down to 2-3 hours.
The primary goal here witht the MagMIMO is to extend the range to that above the 30cm to the range of an average houses area, here you won’t even have to plug in mobile devices in the future they will do all the charging for you.