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Wireless Data and Power Combined


Guest_Jim_*

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In recent years there has been a trend for technologies to go wireless for both form and convenience. Wireless charging is among the advancements being added to technologies, but it often comes at increased cost and weight because it requires special components be added to the device. While there is a reason these parts need to be added, instead of using those already present, researchers at North Carolina State University decided to see if it was possible to work around this reason, and succeeded.

Wireless systems, for data or power, require the use of antennas and radios and typically these parts will be tuned design for their intended purpose for greatest efficiency. For wireless power the parts are tuned to a narrow bandwidth, which minimizes power loss but makes them unsuited for data transfer. What dawned on the researchers is that while the wireless power system does require narrow band antennas, the whole system bandwidth does not need to be so small. By combining narrow-bandwidth components with a wide-bandwidth system, the researchers were able to achieve both power and data transfer.

When the researchers tested this new design, they were able to transfer 3 W of power while transmitting 3.39 MB/s with only a 2.3% loss in efficiency due to the data transmission. If only 2 W of power was transferred though, the efficiency only dropped by 1.3%. These tests were not done with the device resting directly on the charging pad with, but a little more than six inches away, demonstrating that this system can work over a distance.

Source: North Carolina State University



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