Air Power: New Device Captures Ambient Electromagnetic Energy to Drive Small Electronic Devices

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/device-captures-ambient-energy/

7/7/2011 in Electronics, Energy, Materials, Rotator

Air Power: New Device Captures Ambient Electromagnetic Energy to Drive Small Electronic Devices

Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. By scavenging this ambient energy from the air around us, the technique could provide a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips.

“There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it,” said Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research. “We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability.”

Tentzeris and his team are using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy-scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. The resulting self-powered wireless sensors could be used for chemical, biological, heat and stress sensing for defense and industry; radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagging for manufacturing and shipping, and monitoring tasks in many fields including communications and power usage.

A presentation on this energy-scavenging technology was given July 6 at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium in Spokane, Wash. The discovery is based on research supported by multiple sponsors, including the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration and Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

…

[MineralMan]

1. Interesting. When I was in high school, back in the early 60s,

I built an ambient energy-powered transistor radio from scratch. It worked just fine almost anywhere, except out in the middle of nowhere, like the Mojave desert in California. This isn't a new idea, really. It's been possible for quite some time. Today, it's easier, given the low power requirements of many devices, but it's always been possible to harvest energy from the energy all around you. The circuitry is simple.

[bananas]

3. I think a law was passed against this

Enough people were building these that the utility companies freaked out and had a law passed,
the energy is basically stolen from whoever is paying the local utility bills.

[MineralMan]

4. I don't know about that.

I never heard of such a law. Now, it might be illegal to collect power from high-voltage transmission lines using inductive methods. That may be what you're thinking of. My little transistor radio got most of its power from radio and television transmissions, with a additional amounts from the power grid when inside buildings. The power used could be measured in milliwatts. It was very impractical, but it worked as a demonstration thing.

These days, it's easier to use solar power for such things, like calculators, etc. When I was playing with this stuff, silicon solar cells were very expensive, indeed. today, with low power requirements of solid state devices, it doesn't take much to power small devices, even in normal room lighting. So the inductive power robbing isn't really that necessary.

It was all good fun, though, and wowed the adults, for sure.

[OnlinePoker]

7. If you're talking about a crystal radio set, I had one of those as a kid, too. N/T

[MineralMan]

8. No, not a crystal set. I said "transistor radio."

The one I built used three CK722 transistors. It also used a tapped coil of my own design to pick up ambient electromagnetic energy from things like radio and television stations, along with house wiring and other sources. That was rectified with diodes in a bridge rectifier configuration, filtered, and used to power the transistors. The radio itself was a simple regenerative receiver with an audio amplifier stage that drove a 2" loudspeaker.

It worked great.

Thanks for your interest in early transistor technology.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Nikola Tesla would approve....

[Ian David]

5. In the 1970s, I had a Six Million Dollar Man action figure that had a radio that did this. n/t

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. I think everyone’s missing part of the idea here

…

Tentzeris and his team are using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy-scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. …

[MineralMan]

9. No, we didn't miss the idea. They're applying new technology to an

old technology. We didn't have inkjet printers when I was doing this in 1960. We had to use wire and stuff. It still worked the same way, though. The principle is the same - exactly.

[txlibdem]

10. Ingenious idea, K&R

Tapping into otherwise wasted energy. Brilliant. I'd like to see this applied to laptop computers. How long does your battery last? Forever.

[kestrel91316]

11. John Galt might approve, lol, though it taps something other than static electricity.