WiTricity
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| Founder | Marin Soljačić |
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| Headquarters | Watertown, United States |
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Key people
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Alex Gruzen, CEO |
| Website | www |
WiTricity is an American engineering company that manufactures devices for wireless energy transfer using resonant energy transfer based on oscillating magnetic fields.
The term WiTricity was used for a project that took place at MIT, led by Marin Soljačić in 2006. The MIT researchers successfully demonstrated the ability to power a 60 watt light bulb wirelessly, using two 5-turn copper coils of 60 cm (24 in) diameter, that were 2 m (7 ft) away, at roughly 45% efficiency. The coils were designed to resonate together at 9.9 MHz (wavelength ≈ 30 m) and were oriented along the same axis. One was connected inductively to a power source, and the other one to a bulb. The setup powered the bulb on, even when the direct line of sight was blocked using a wooden panel. Researchers were able to power a 60 watt light bulb at roughly 90% efficiency at a distance of 3 feet. The research project was spun off into a private company, also called WiTricity.
The emerging technology was demonstrated in July 2009 by CEO Eric Giler at the TED Global Conference held in Oxford. There he refers to the original idea, first applied by the physicist Nikola Tesla between his coils, and shows a WiTricity power unit powering a television as well as three different cell phones, the initial problem that inspired Soljacic to get involved with the project.
Automobile manufacturer Toyota made an investment in WiTricity in April 2011.
In September 2012, the company announced it would make a $1000 demonstration kit available to interested parties, to promote development of commercial applications.
WiTricity is based on weakly coupled electromagnetic resonant objects to transfer energy wirelessly. This differs from other methods like simple induction, microwaves, or air ionization. The system consists of transmitters and receivers that contain magnetic loop antennas critically tuned to the same frequency.
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Wikipedia