Wireless Charging: How does it work?

by Feb 24, 2019IoT Connectivity

At present, more than 500 types of devices are using wireless charging and somehow it became a trend. If you had purchased a smartphone recently, you can be able to use this piece of technology. If you are using a sonic toothbrush, it is fed with wireless power when placed on the charging pad. Also, the Apple AirPods are fed power when it is placed in its charging case. Have you ever wondered, how does current flow through the air! Is that a kind of electrical magic? Well, Yes. You will get to know each and every detail and standards used in wireless charging through this article.

Charging Resources
Standards of Wireless Transmission
Inductive Power Transmissions
Coils used in Inductive Power Transmission Systems

Wireless power Charging Credits: Apple

So, before going further into this article, we shall see some basic physics laws related to electric current.

Faraday’s Law: When a permanent magnet is passing through an area bounded by the coils, magnetic flux is generated. The electromagnetic field is proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic flux. The wireless charging technology follows similar to this kind of law.

History of Wireless Charging

The concept of wireless power transfer was done by radio waves. But it was just an attempt by James C.Maxwell in 1864. Then in a later period, the famous “Tesla Tower” was built by Nikola Tesla as he believed that he can attempt power transfer. The tower was a giant 200 feet coil with a ball of 3 feet in diameter. However, that experiment failed due to the power dissipation in all the directions. Most scientists were using microwaves and radio waves as a medium for the wireless power transfer. Later comes the inductive charging in which so many research were there on powering Electric cars and buses. The inductive charging method became so famous and used for commercial purposes.

Charging Resources

Energy Harvesting Sources- Light, Magnetic, Vibration. Thermoelectric and Radiofrequency
Renewable Energy Sources – Water, Wind, solar
Power Grid Sources – Inductive Charging, Grid, Capacitive Charging, High Power Grid

Types of Wireless Charging:

Inductive-The coils are used here as transmitter and receiver which are distanced by 0.7 cm. It is the most widely used product in the market.
Magnetic Resonance – it is same as Inductive charging, but the transmitter can charge at the distance of 4.5 cm
Radio Frequency – it is used for charging the devices which require less power.

Standards of Wireless Charging

Wireless Power Consortium- (Qi) – It is an inductive technology which has a frequency of 200 KHz with 5W transmitting power and 5mm maximum range. The Qi is becoming more popular and recently Apple used this standard for its new iPhone8 and iPhone X.

Inductive Power Transmissions

Inductive Power Transmission
Credits: Wikipedia

There are two coils of wire L1 and L2, the power is transferred between them by magnetic field. L1 is the transceiver coil and L2 is the receiver coil, both together act as transformers. The AC current is given to the coil L1, creates a magnetic field by Ampere’s Law. Then the magnetic field is passed through the coil L2, it induces an alternating EMF by Faraday’s Law of induction which creates AC in the coil L2. The Alternating Current may drive the load directly or may be converted to Direct Current by the Rectifier.

IPT System Losses

In Coil- Copper loss, Ferrite Core coil loss, Coil Geometry and Radiation loss.
User- Misaignment of the coil
Electronic Circuit- Component loss, Resonance

Coils Used in Inductive Power Transfer (IPT)

  1. Ferrite Core Coils :
Ferrite coils

The Ferrite-Core coil consists of coil cores and 1-2 layers of transmitter core and receiver core. The Absorption takes place at the transmitter coil and the Reflection takes place at the Sending coil. Copper, Stainless steel or Aluminium is used as Ferrite core coils. The magnetic field is concentrated near the core coil, can increase the circuit temperature, high permeability.

2. Air core Coils

The Air-Core coil has uniform flux density propagation with a simple structure. It has low permeability, no core losses and low efficient in the low frequency applications. No core loss, since it has no core present.

Advantages of Wireless Charge Transfer

  • Security
  • Design
  • Free Positioning
  • Easy
  • Portable Pad
  • Sometimes parallel charging for multiple devices
  • Can reduces electric shock

Disadvantages of Wireless Charge Transfer

  • The time taken for charging the device is more
  • Can’t predict the battery life
  • High cost
  • Energy losses and Heat effect
  • System complexity

Future of Wireless Charging

At present, lot of money spent on prototypes and ongoing research on this topic. Many companies have upgraded their mobile phones and devices to wireless charging and also in many public places like Coffee Shops and airports have this wireless charging facility. From a small Electric toothbrush to a modern Electric Car, the wireless charging plays a vital role in the industries and manufacturing sectors. Not even from IPT, but also from Radio, Laser, Microwaves, the wireless power transmission can be done.

Creating a multiplication Skill in Alexa using python

Written By Monisha Macharla

Hi, I'm Monisha. I am a tech blogger and a hobbyist. I am eager to learn and explore tech related stuff! also, I wanted to deliver you the same as much as the simpler way with more informative content. I generally appreciate learning by doing, rather than only learning. Thank you for reading my blog! Happy learning!

RELATED POSTS

What is Edge Intelligence: Architecture and Use Cases

What is Edge Intelligence: Architecture and Use Cases

Introduction With the latest advancements in AI technologies, we have noticed a significant increase in the deployment of AI-based applications and services in recent years. More recently, with the booming IoT industry in particular, billions of mobiles and IoT...

Apache Kafka vs Apache Spark : All you need to know

Apache Kafka vs Apache Spark : All you need to know

Introduction Due to the increase in the volume of data, the demand for Stream processing is on the rise. Just processing the data wouldn't be enough, it should be done quickly too so that organizations can react to changing market conditions on a real-time basis. This...

Creating a Multiplication Skill in Alexa using Python

Creating a Multiplication Skill in Alexa using Python

Introduction In this tutorial, we will be focusing on how to create a custom multiplication skill in Alexa using Python. If you're completely new to Alexa skills, you can get a brief idea about it by clicking here. Subsequently, we have posted regarding account...

Creating a Hello World Skill in Alexa using Python

Creating a Hello World Skill in Alexa using Python

Introduction In this tutorial, we will be focusing on how to create a Hello World Skill in Alexa Developer Console. This is the most basic skill, and it would give us an idea about Skill-building using Alexa's developer console. If you're completely new to Alexa, you...

Creating a custom Date-Time skill in Alexa using Python

Creating a custom Date-Time skill in Alexa using Python

Introduction In this tutorial, we will look at how to create a simple date-time skill in Alexa using Python. For this skill, the only prerequisites required are an Alexa developer account and some basic understanding of Python. Also, we have created a post on how to...

All you need to know about Amazon Alexa Skills

All you need to know about Amazon Alexa Skills

Introduction In this tutorial, we will be taking a quick look at Amazon Alexa Skills. So, let us get started with the most common question - What Is Amazon Alexa? Alexa is nothing but a cloud-based voice service provided by the tech giant Amazon. In today's world,...

Wi-Fi HaLow: IEEE 802.11ah Wireless Networking Protocol

Wi-Fi HaLow (pronounced "HEY-Low") is an IEEE 802.11ah wireless networking protocol. It was released in 2017 as an update to the IEEE 802.11-2007 wireless networking standard. It uses 900 MHz, license-exempt bands, to provide extended range Wi-Fi networks, as opposed...

What is IoT Cisco Virtualized Packet Core (VPC)?

What is IoT Cisco Virtualized Packet Core (VPC)?

In this article, we will discuss about what is Cisco Virtualized Packet Core (VPC), How it supports IOT. Finally, we discus about its use cases. What is Virtualized Packet Core (VPC)? Virtualized Packet Core (VPC) is a technology providing all services for 4G, 3G, 2G,...

10 Best FTP clients for Windows and MAC users

10 Best FTP clients for Windows and MAC users

FTP is the abbreviation for File Transfer Protocol. Its a commonly used protocol to exchange files over any network. FTP clients are specifically designed software to transfer files between PC and servers over the internet. When a file is being transferred from one...

What is DNS and How does it work?

What is DNS and How does it work?

The Internet is just a network of 'n' computers that can communicate over various communication channels. Now, anything you do on the Internet is only an exchange of information(through files, scripts, etc.) So for the exchange to happen, you need to locate the other...

VIDEOS – FOLLOW US ON YOUTUBE

EXPLORE OUR IOT PROJECTS

IoT Smart Gardening System – ESP8266, MQTT, Adafruit IO

Gardening is always a very calming pastime. However, our gardens' plants may not always receive the care they require due to our active lifestyles. What if we could remotely keep an eye on their health and provide them with the attention they require? In this article,...

How to Simulate IoT projects using Cisco Packet Tracer

In this tutorial, let's learn how to simulate the IoT project using the Cisco packet tracer. As an example, we shall build a simple Home Automation project to control and monitor devices. Introduction Firstly, let's quickly look at the overview of the software. Packet...

All you need to know about integrating NodeMCU with Ubidots over MQTT

In this tutorial, let's discuss Integrating NodeMCU and Ubidots IoT platform. As an illustration, we shall interface the DHT11 sensor to monitor temperature and Humidity. Additionally, an led bulb is controlled using the dashboard. Besides, the implementation will be...

All you need to know about integrating NodeMCU with Ubidots over Https

In this tutorial, let's discuss Integrating NodeMCU and Ubidots IoT platform. As an illustration, we shall interface the DHT11 sensor to monitor temperature and Humidity. Additionally, an led bulb is controlled using the dashboard. Besides, the implementation will be...

How to design a Wireless Blind Stick using nRF24L01 Module?

Introduction Let's learn to design a low-cost wireless blind stick using the nRF24L01 transceiver module. So the complete project is divided into the transmitter part and receiver part. Thus, the Transmitter part consists of an Arduino Nano microcontroller, ultrasonic...

Sending Temperature data to ThingSpeak Cloud and Visualize

In this article, we are going to learn “How to send temperature data to ThingSpeak Cloud?”. We can then visualize the temperature data uploaded to ThingSpeak Cloud anywhere in the world. But "What is ThingSpeak?” ThingSpeak is an open-source IoT platform that allows...

Amaze your friend with latest tricks of Raspberry Pi and Firebase

Introduction to our Raspberry Pi and Firebase trick Let me introduce you to the latest trick of Raspberry Pi and Firebase we'll be using to fool them. It begins with a small circuit to connect a temperature sensor and an Infrared sensor with Raspberry Pi. The circuit...

How to implement Machine Learning on IoT based Data?

Introduction The industrial scope for the convergence of the Internet of Things(IoT) and Machine learning(ML) is wide and informative. IoT renders an enormous amount of data from various sensors. On the other hand, ML opens up insight hidden in the acquired data....

Smart Display Board based on IoT and Google Firebase

Introduction In this tutorial, we are going to build a Smart Display Board based on IoT and Google Firebase by using NodeMCU8266 (or you can even use NodeMCU32) and LCD. Generally, in shops, hotels, offices, railway stations, notice/ display boards are used. They are...

Smart Gardening System – GO GREEN Project

Automation of farm activities can transform agricultural domain from being manual into a dynamic field to yield higher production with less human intervention. The project Green is developed to manage farms using modern information and communication technologies....