First Cellphone Without Batteries Harnesses Power From Ambient Radio Signals and Light, Almost Zero Power Consumption
The first cell phone without batteries will soon hit the market with the very least power consumption. The latest gadget is to harvest its power from ambient signals like radio, television, and mobile telephones or light. The device and its operation are published in a journal in the Proceedings of the Association of Computing Machinery, Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technology.
Co-author Dr. Shyam Gollakota of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington claims that they made such an advancement of the first cell phone without batteries and the technology behind it. The team enhanced the basic design of how these gadgets are going to work and serve its purpose.
Gollakota adds that these battery free mobile phones harvest its power from generated vibrations when talking to or listening to audio when in a call. An antenna attached to the devices captures the analog radio signals and convert them into power from cellular base stations.
According to Senior Author, Professor Joshua Smith of the Paul G, Allen School of Computers and Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, the cell phone is what people depend upon today. The most appropriate application if one has to take advantage of this technology has to be the cell phone, reports Science News.
The cell phone without batteries processes the function by encoding speech patterns through its built in program that consumes almost zero power. To get a message across, the phone translates signals captured by the microphone that encodes the data in the reflected signals. Receiving calls process the same method when speech is captured by the speakers and translated into data encoded in the reflected signals.
The prototype unit of the cell phone without batteries operates by pressing a button for the send and receiving speech modes. Just like the principle when using two-way radio communication devices. The test cell phone device has very simple electronic components that could be bought over the counter but still could function practically. Like the usage of skype, the testers placed calls and received calls using data translated through the reflective signals, reports the University of Washington Today.
The team is looking forward to having cell towers or wi-fi routers embedding the technology in the system. Vibrations could easily be picked up by the battery free cell phones. The presence of wi-fi routers would mean unlimited data vibration capture for these devices, says Vamsi Talla, co-author and a former doctoral student at Washington University.
The prototype cell phones without batteries consume the power of 3.5 micro watts and could collect data 31 feet away. Power generated from solar energy is in a storage device the size of a grain of rice allows the phone to contact base stations 50 feet away.
The team's next focus is the cell phone without batteries' operation range and the security of the conversation taking place. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Google Faculty Research Award.