Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have revealed that "power over Wi-Fi" (PoWiFi) can recharge devices wirelessly up to nearly 30 feet away, which could put communication and power in one system without the need to plug it.
"We have a huge Wi-Fi infrastructure already in place. If we can repurpose existing infrastructure for power delivery as well, then we can actually enable wireless power delivery in homes and offices," Vamsi Talla, one of the researchers, told Popular Science.
PoWiFi makes use of a harvester that takes radio frequency (RF) power and transforms it into usable direct current (DC) power. The research team designed a software that would ensure that both charging and connectivity won't be interrupted.
"If we wanted to just blast as much power as we possibly can, that would kill your Wi-Fi, because you'd have power on the channel all the time," said researcher Bryce Kellogg, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
"We optimized the router so that... Instead of having continuous power on one of your Wi-Fi channels, we split it among your three non-overlapping Wi-Fi channels," he added. "That allows us to deliver about the same amount of power without impacting any one channel very much."
The idea of using wireless power mirrors the work of Nikola Tesla, who "dreamed of eliminating wires for both power and communication," the researchers wrote in their paper.
Despite the success of wireless communication, wireless power isn't established yet. Hence, researchers have tested PoWiFi on a camera from 17 feet on temperature sensors from 20 feet, and on rechargeable batteries from 28 feet while following the guidelines of the Federal Communications Commission.
The team installed it in six Seattle-area homes to check the system's effect on Internet speeds. Out of six, five said that the router's charging ability has no effect on their Internet usage.
The UW team is currently exploring marketing possibilities and improvements like streamlining the harvesters to increase their maximum range.
We can "forget power mats and battery packs; the energy we need is already all around us," according to Wired. Now we have a way to harness it - and stay connected, too."
