KAIST developes DCRS, a long-range Wireless Charging Technology - IEC Charger Standards now obsolete as KAIST makes an Earth based Magnetar

“Our technology proved the possibility of a new remote power delivery mechanism that has never been tried at such a long distance. Although the long-range wireless power transfer is still in an early stage of commercialization and quite costly to implement, we believe that this is the right direction for electric power to be supplied in the future. Just like we see Wi-Fi zones everywhere today, we will eventually have many Wi-Power zones at such places as restaurants and streets that provide electric power wirelessly to electronic devices. We will use all the devices anywhere without tangled wires attached and anytime without worrying about charging their batteries.”

Prof. Chun T. Rim of the Nuclear and Quantum Engineering department at KAIST in a press release explaining DCRS

Wireless Power Transfer has takes a big leap forward with the development of DCRS (Dipole Coil Resonant System) by the team at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)!

DCRS allows for the wireless charging of smartphones and Laptops as far away as 5 meters as stated in “WIRELESS CHARGING IS COMING: RESEARCHERS JUICE UP 40 SMARTPHONES FROM 5 METERS AWAY”, published April 19, 2014 By Christian Brazil Bautista, DigitalTrends and “Wireless charger can power 40 mobile phones at once from 15 feet away”, published APR. 21, 2014 - 7:52 AM PDT by Signe Brewster, Gigaom.

If you remember, these are the same dudes that developed the JEROS (Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm Robots) Project to exterminate Jellyfish around Nuclear Reactors as detailed in my blog article entitled “Urban Robotics Lab at KAIST develops the JEROS to Exterminate, Exterminate Jellyfish - JEROS are the Daleks of Dr. Who to keep Nuclear Reactors Safe in 2014”.

The KAIST Team, led by Prof. Chun T. Rim of the Nuclear and Quantum Engineering department, had basically improved on the MIT (Massechussets Institute of Technology) WiTricity Design for Wireless Power Transfer as described in “MIT crafts wireless electricity”, published June 18, 2007 9:14 PM PDT by Michael Kanellos, CNET News and “MIT's new WiTricity could eliminate power cords, and even batteries”, published June 15, 2007, 2:29 AM PST By Jason Hiner, TechRepublic.

MIT's design can only work for a distance of 2 meters and can only power a Laptop.

KAIST has not only improved on the distance but also the bulkiness of the design which consists of four coils:

1.      Input

2.      Transmission

3.      Reception

4.      Load

The total length of the device is 3 meters, making it smaller and a lot less complex than the MIT Design. It can also power more stuff. More stuff here is basically a large LED TV and three 40-watt fans, roughly 500 Watts, the typical power Requirement in a house in the night-time.

If this development becomes commercialized, just as it’s possible to have lighting fixtures that can acts as Wi-Fi and even Li-Fi Hotspots as described in my blog article entitled “LG Electronics Internet Controlled LED Light Bulb - Li-Fi’s Standardization of Alexander Graham Bell’s First Invention powered by Powerline AV 500 and Homeplug AV”, we may also have Wi-Power Lighting Fixtures as well, as per the vision of Prof. Chun T. Rim.

How DCRS works - KAIST moves from killing Jellyfish to Wireless Power

So how does DCRS work?

It it's anything like its predecessor, it's based on the idea of a rapidly spinning Magnetic Field. If you've ever worked in a Medical Hospital with MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or at AREL Jamaica Limited as I have, you will no doubt have been told that you cannot have anything ferrous on you physically or even have in a pacemaker or metallic jewellery. 

This as the Magnetic Field of the Helium-cooled Magnet is so strong that it can literally rip it off you, causing serious bodily Harm. Despite this, MRI and their more Research oriented cousins NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) are useful for imaging even bacteria, once you’ve rapidly frozen them in place of course as described in my blog article entitled “University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University develope Nanometer NMR - MRI's Research Cousin used for imaging Viruses and Bacteria in the Nanometer Twilight Zone”.

What you may not know, however, is the fact that Magnetic Field effect on you is also in part due to its operating frequency. Albeit Magnetic Field Strength is measured in Teslas, with 1 Tesla being equivalent to 10,000 (or 104) G (gauss), the rate at which a Magnetic Field Pulses on or off i.e. it's frequency, can determine how strong it actually feels.

It's a lot like Electro Magnetic Radiation i.e. Radio Waves and Light; the higher the frequency, the more power it can carry and thus transfer to a suitably designed Receiver. A slowly pulsing  Magnetic Field at 1 Hz that is, say 1 Tesla, will feel a lot stronger than the same 1 Tesla  Magnetic Field that is spinning at 5 KHz, as the North and South Poles of the Magnetic Field doesn’t stay pointed long enough in one direction to effectively attract and pull an object in.

The same analogy can be seen with electrical wires or even a Motor. When the Motor is stationary or the wires is carrying DC Power, if you stand close enough to it, the  Magnetic Field will have a pulling effect on anything ferrous that you may have on your person or attached to you directly.

But once the wire is carrying AC power or the Motor starts turning, the Magnetic Field starts to rapidly spin. Even though the Magnetic Field is strong, its effective strength is less as its rapidly rotating, making it hard for a Magnetic Field to effectively attract anything ferrous that's nearby.

However, the rapidly pulsing Magnetic Field, which can also be created by rotating the poles of a Magnet at a rapid rate, because of the Kinetic Energy imparted due to its rapid rotating, can transfer an immense amount of Energy. Much in the same way a higher frequencies of Electro-Magnetic Radiation i.e. Radio Waves or even Visible Light or Gamma Rays, have higher Energy due to having higher Frequencies.

This makes high frequency rapidly rotating Magnetic Fields excellent for transmitting Electricity via Magnetic Induction using Lenz’s Law of Electro Magnetic Induction. The trick is to make the Magnetic Field Pulse on and off so rapidly that it exceeds the hysteresis of ferrous material and thus doesn’t cause attraction or a pulling effect.

However, it will still induce a  Magnetic Field in a suitably designed non-ferrous Receiver whose material has a Hysteresis curve that indicates that it can be  Magnetically induced at such high rates or rotation, typically 1 GHz or higher.

The physically observable effects of such Magnetic Induction are a heating effect in nearby non-ferrous metals e.g. Copper, Silver, Gold, etc caught in the rapidly rotating Magnetic Field. At such high frequencies of rotation and reversals of Magnetic field, the current generated results in what’s referred to as the Skin Effect in metals i.e. heating of the outer layers of a conductor due to it carrying high-frequency electrical currents.

It is for this reason that in Telecoms, Waveguides are used to carry high frequency radiation, as at frequencies above 1 GHz, the heating effect caused makes the resistance of the wires increase. Thus this easily gives clues as to how the KAIST Device works and more interestingly, at what operating frequency it’s using to achieve this remarkable feat of Engineering!

IEC Charger Standards now obsolete - KAIST makes an Earth based Magnetar

All the KAIST Team have done is to create a very powerful rapidly spinning Magnetic Pulse Motor that operates much like a Magnetar i.e. a Pulsar whose Magnetic Poles rapidly rotate and has a field strength in the billions of Teslas. Only instead of Billions of Teslas, it may just be about 1.2 Teslas or so, as such high level of Magnetic field equivalent to a Magnetar would rip the atoms with unpaired Electrons with opposite spins out of the molecules in your body!

Due to the high rate of rotation, only certain materials that have a certain Hysteresis curve can be magnetically induced and will cause a heating effect, generating Electricity via Lenz’s Law as it relates to Magnetic Induction.

With a suitable step down Transformer, the electricity generated by the Receiver can then be rectified to DC power or have its frequency adjusted to power the device in question, be it a large LED TV and three 40-watt fans!  

Magnetic Fields are affected by moisture in the air, as water molecules, due to their exposed Hydrogen Nuclei, will be attracted to the Magnetic Field generated by KAIST’s rapidly spinning Magnetic Pulse Motor.

Just like a rapidly spinning Magnetar in Outer Space! Only with a smaller Magnetic Field!

To this end, they must have developed a way to reduce moisture gathering inside of the DCRS, possibly via using a moisture trap that absorbs stray moisture that gets into the machine. They also improved on the ventilation to keep the rapidly spinning Magnetic Pulse Motor cool.

The KAIST Team may have used Hollow Waveguides or a Ceramic Conducting Coil for the coils instead of wires, as Hollow Waveguides or a Ceramic Conducting Coil would still generates a Magnetic field due to electromagnetic Induction without significant heating effect.

Most likely they don’t have a physically spinning Motor, just a Hollow Waveguides or a Ceramic Conducting Coil that rapidly turns on and off and projects the Lobes or Poles of Magnetic Field precisely in a particular direction.

This as with that frequency of Electricity coursing through the Hollow Waveguides or a Ceramic Conducting Coil, they’ll get very hot due to Skin Effect, necessitating that they be made of some exotic non-ferrous Ceramic Material that conducts electricity, possibly CNT (Carbon Nanotubes).

Hence the need for a Transmit and Receive Coil on the DCRS to determine the distance from the DCRS to the object and adjust the spinning Magnetic Field accordingly! The Input is where the power is fed into the coils and the Load is a Dummy load for situations where no objects are using the DCRS, thus making sure it’s constantly operating without having to be totally powered down and thus completing the circuit!

The minute someone walks into the room with a device that has the specially designed Receiver, it establishes transmission and reception based on how the objects resonated with the frequency of the rapidly spinning Magnetic Field and begins to transmit power to that device.

If KAIST chooses to commercialize this device and possibly get it smaller, we may not need to have standards for a Universal Laptop Chargers. This standard is currently being pursued by the Swiss based Electronics and Electrical Standards Group, the IEC (International Electro-technical Commission) as described in my blog article entitled “Swiss Technical Standards Body IEC developing Universal Laptop Charger specs for early 2014 - Post-Analog Power Cord and Power Adaptor Era should focus on Waste Energy Recycling”.

Here’s hoping that KAIST can develop a more portable Magnetar that can be carried in the pocket, derive its Input Power from Solar and can re-charge Laptops and smartphones anyplace, anytime!

While they’re at it, they can also make other spin-off devices, such as a Coaster for heating Coffee or Tea or even a levitating Flying Saucer using the same Technology, a device that I’ll probably explain in another article, as Magnetic Induction is an excellent way to heat and cook foods as well make things levitate and fly across the room!