The advent of a prototype router that uses WiFi signal Charging

The advent of a prototype router that uses WiFi signal Charging

According to foreign media reports, the "ambient backscatter" technology developed by American engineers can use Wi-Fi signals and convert them into electricity. Today, a prototype router that integrates this technology has been launched. In the test, a router called PoWiFi can charge the Camera 5 meters away without interfering with the network speed.

 

The technology was first published by the University of Washington research team. At the recent MIT EmTech Digital conference, the team's chief engineer, Shyam Gollakota, presented this type of router. The study team installed a PoWiFi router in six homes and asked users to use the router during full-day Internet access.

"Reverse scattering around" is also called "Wi-Fi reverse scattering". This technology allows two radio frequency power supply devices that consume power to communicate with each other through "reverse scattering" existing wireless signals. By using a rectifier, the radio waves emitted by the router in the test are converted to DC voltage. This is similar to how solar panels convert solar energy into electric energy.

Subsequently, the investigator used a DC-DC converter to increase the voltage level of the signal to match the requirements of the sensor or microcontroller.

Although Costa is not the first person to use peripheral RF sources to obtain power, the router he developed is the first device that does not require a dedicated gateway, such as RFID readers when connecting to the network. The research team uses existing Wi-Fi facilities to communicate with low-power devices. For this reason, more than half of the users participating in the test said, "no significant impact was found when using the network ."