Ever imagine charging your mobile phones or laptops without using power cables or lighting up your homes without plugging it into power sockets? How about recharging your car wirelessly? Thinking it’s impossible?

Well, the answer is no. This idea has been thought about 100 years ago by Nikola Tesla – an inventor, engineer, a physicist and major contributor to the development of Alternating-Current electrical system. And now, a team of MIT scientists is now saying that wired power transmission will soon be a thing of the past and that “WiTricity” will be the next big thing.

The idea of “WiTricity” or wireless electricity technology began one night when MIT Professor Marin Soljačić was awoken by a low battery notification from his cellphone. An inkling thought of finding a way to transfer power from the existing wired infrastructure to the phone—without wires came to his mind. Electricity and magnetism is the bases of this new technology and that the “coupled resonators” phenomenon was used to make the wireless power transfer possible.

The experimental design of WiTricity used copper coils with each resonant system and a power AC supply. One of the coil will be connected to the AC power supply which will be the resonant source while the other coil will be the resonant capture device. The resonant capture device is connected to a light bulb.

“The power source and capture device were suspended in mid-air with nylon thread, at distances that ranged from a few centimeters to over 2.5 meters (8.2 ft). Not only was the light bulb illuminated, but the theoretical predictions of high efficiency over distance were proven experimentally. By placing various objects between the source and capture device, the team demonstrated how the magnetic near field can transfer power through certain materials and around metallic obstacles.”

This was the foundation of Prof. Soljačić’s vision, transferring electric energy or power over distance without wires which is being realized through WiTricity Corporation. A corporation which was launched in 2007 for the commercial production of this technology.


Source: http://witricity.com/technology/the-witricity-story/