Scientists have created a part capable of generating an electric field to charge any object wirelessly

The concept is obviously very appealing. These scientists are trying to build the house of the future, a habitat in which it would be enough to enter to see his smartphone charging automatically where lamps, vacuum cleaners, connected objects would no longer need to be plugged into a mains socket. For now, they have designed a prototype, a room with aluminum walls in which we can find a remote-controlled car, lamps, a smartphone or a fan powered by electricity without any wires.

A bedroom with no electrical outlets or wires

In this room, objects do not need to be close to a surface or a conventional induction charger to work. For example, it is possible to move freely in the room and see your smartphone recharge automatically anywhere. Obviously, recharging is not effective in the same way everywhere depending on where you are. But this is due to the very design of the room.

The latter is entirely covered with aluminum, whether it is the floor, the ceiling or the walls. In its center is a copper pipe on which fifteen capacitors have been fixed. It is these capacitors – the only ones connected to electricity by a wire – which will be responsible for emitting an electric field called here “quasistatic cavity resonance”, or QSCR.

The process is quite technical (and my knowledge of electricity quite limited), but from what I understand the current will pass through the pipe then be diffused through the walls, the ceiling and the floor and the capacitors will create an electric field that revolve around the pipe.

Limited dangers for humans

The question everyone is asking is obviously: what about the humans inside this room then? Contrary to what one might think, the risks are rather limited for the moment. Scientists have in fact calculated that the maximum power present in the room should not exceed 1900 watts before the specific absorption rate (SAR, calculated in watts per kilogram) reaches dangerous levels for humans. Simply put, you won't turn into a Picard dish in a microwave if you stay in that room too long.

Obviously, it is still a restrictive prototype: impossible to use it if the part includes “holes” necessary for any human habitation such as doors or windows. The scientists behind the project, however, do not despair of seeing their invention become more popular in the years to come, in particular with the help of conductive paint, to replace the aluminum panels of their room.

• For those who are not afraid of scientific articles in English: Quasistatic Cavity Resonance for Ubiquitous Wireless Power Transfer