Student Invents Device that Charges Batteries with Radio and WIFI Waves

Posted by Kittyhawk 10 years, 9 months ago to Technology
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German university student, Dennis Siegel, invented a device that captures electromagnetic fields like WIFI and radio waves and converts them to stored energy in batteries.


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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's effectively what tidal generators do. They're not a great source of usable energy - but they'd o exist and they do generate some power.

    A local unit (less than the size of a house) would be unlikely to generate more than enough energy to demonstrate the concept. Nothing useful.
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  • Posted by barwick11 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Are you a follower of blaze labs? Xavier borg I think is the guys name that does a lot of work on that.

    Gravitational EM waves would be absurdly high frequency if he's right
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 9 months ago
    I knew my son was going to be a scientist of some sort when he started fixing electronic stuff around the house at age 8. Turned out to be an engineer in (what else?) the computer field. I told him he could have whatever he fixed. I didn't know we had so much broken stuff. Hmmmm?
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What if one could alter Newton's basic gravitational interaction equation to account for the wavelength of a graviton and minimum mass? What if Newton's theory is a simplified version of the master equation which takes into account these other items?
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It would fit with the idea of strings and identifying the tone of various strings as constituent to forming various particles, etc. Which then begs the question: could we then derive a graviton? Is the reason why gravitational forces seem to only have any real effect at astronomical distances because the wavelength of a graviton wave-particle is so long that only only truly massive objects at relatively astronomical distances have A) the mass necessary to resonate and B) the distance necessary to resonate with a perceptible difference between the two bodies that wouldn't be overcome by the standard electromagnetic forces?

    Hmmm....
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  • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    these 2 referenced urls lead to the conclusion that
    gravity is a very-low-frequency (cycles per light-year)
    wave, which we need an Einstein to translate ... and
    I bet that there is one in here!!! -- j

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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years, 9 months ago
    In the book Rand describes the motor rather vaguely, something about capturing atmospheric static electricity (the fundamental mechanism of lightning). In the movie (AS1) Dagney mentions "the Casimir effect" which is a very real phenomenon and is related to the vacuum energy of space its self. If the theories are any where near correct the energy available is enormous. Billions of times greater than atomic fusion. It is also astronomically dangerous, the energy stored in a space the size of an ordinary 100 watt light bulb is enough to destroy the Earth.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 9 months ago
    we should recognize this as a corollary to Galt's motor,
    folks -- getting energy from the environment. Ben Franklin
    started this.

    except for inductive reaction (and the power company
    catching you at it), you can harvest power from overhead
    lines and never pay a cent. you can hear the sizzling
    of the capacitive reaction in moist air when you
    walk under them. just form a large loop of wire and,
    zowie, measure the current -- and convert it!

    the video on this site was withdrawn because of 3rd
    party reports of patent infringement, it said.

    if this works, with a high-frequency diode, the patent
    will not do anyone much good -- all able
    electronic tinkerers will do it. -- j

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  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 9 months ago
    This is very, very close to John Galt's electrostatic motor. And by the way: our very muscles are biological examples of electrostatic motors.
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  • Posted by Ranter 10 years, 9 months ago
    When I was a boy, I built a crystal radio. It derived the power to run itself from the radio waves in the air. The crystal absorbed radio waves, used some of that energy for power, and translated the signal to vibrations that my ear picked up through a little earphone. No batteries. I assume that this invention is an extension of a similar principle.
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years, 9 months ago
    It's all about energy density. Watts per square meter kind of energy. Anyone that remembers crystal sets from the early days of radio knows that it is possible to build a radio receiver that is powered only by the captured energy of the radio station. Stray EM fields are everywhere. If you live near a power line the 60 HZ field is significant, so much so that they represent a troublesome loss of power to the grid. The trick is capturing enough of the energy to be useful. It takes a big antenna and a good impedance match but it is definitely doable.
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  • Posted by woodlema 10 years, 9 months ago
    It would also put a lot of wealthy powerful people and companies out of business, and create a new industry sector. A true John Galt.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That would really be interesting, as he likely hit upon one of the fundamental concepts needed to resolve Unified Theory. If he actually figured out the wavelength of gravity, that would be a Nobel-worthy advancement.
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  • Posted by $ Your_Name_Goes_Here 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    As a fellow engineer, I agree with your points... The other thing I'd ask is how much degradation the field experiences that is being "tapped" . There's no such thing as a free lunch after all.

    Intel has been playing with AC-powered wireless charging for some time (at least since 2008), and Starbucks is deploying wireless charging for its customers beginning this year:

    http://www.powermat.com/announcements/na...
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  • Posted by richrobinson 10 years, 9 months ago
    I can't believe he just got second place. I tried to watch the video but a message said youtube has received multiple third party complaints about copyright infringement. Hope those folks are talking to this kid. He may be John Galt.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm glad you liked it. I was just blown away by the idea of gathering power from thin air. It sounds like something John Galt would do!
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 9 months ago
    I tried to do this when I was in high school by connecting my long-wire shortwave antenna to a galvanometer. I got very little current, although I didn't know anything at that point about impedance matching. Usually I saw a trickle of current, but I occasionally saw spikes. I didn't have a spectrum analyzer to work out where they were.

    I'm skeptical about how much power you can get. I'd be shocked to see 1mW developed in a 50-ohm load. That works out to 0.22V, which is VERY hard to work w/ b/c it's less than a diode drop, BUT people are working hard on it b/c many of these energy harvesting ideas produce very low voltages. Even if the boost converter were 20% efficient, you would have 67uA at 3V. That's more than enough to run a small microcontroller with a 32kHz clock running that wakes up and does something at least once a second.

    I'd love to here how Mr. Siegel boosts the voltage. That's were all the trickiness is. I love this topic.
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