Road warriors may be a step closer to dumping the rat’s nest of recharging wires in their laptop bags. According to reports, Intel was to demonstrate Thursday at the Intel Developers Forum a major breakthrough in charging devices such as laptops, cell phones, and MP3 players without wires.
But according to Dr. Izahr Matzkevich, cofounder of wireless developer WildCharge, the technology has a long way to go.
The technology is based on pioneering work done by Dr. Marin Soljacic at the MIT Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics. In details published in 2006, Soljacic demonstrated the transmission of electricity at a distance of seven feet using magnetic resonance. In a nutshell, transmitter and receiver must be on the same magnetic frequency for electrical current to travel from one point to the next.
The Intel technology focuses on two key factors in wirelessly recharging devices — distance and efficiency. Up to this point wireless recharge technology has been mired by a 50 percent loss in energy. In other words, only about half the transmitted energy ever reaches the target device. Reports are that Intel has broken that barrier with yields as high as 60 to 75 percent.
Also a drawback, according to some analysts, is distance — the present technology requires that wireless rechargers must be in contact with recharging bases or recharging mats. But Matzkevich said distance will be a problem for a long time to come.
“Resonance technology like the MIT demonstration requires a heavy infrastructure — right now, with coils of at least two feet — to accomplish even a small distance,” he said. “Add to that a 35 percent loss in power, this is not insignificant.”
He also noted that such resonant fields could cause interference problems with other wireless devices, and miniaturization of the transmitter coils from two…