A team of researchers at the University of Washington has developed a working prototype of a cell phone without power source- Battery. This project was headed by Indian-origin scientist Vamsi Talla, UW research associate along with Joshua Smith, UW CSE associate professor. This batteryless cellphone prototype harvests energy from radio signals or Ambient light. At this stage, it features a LED light and buttons on a circuit board. Future research on this prototype will include E-ink display and refined call quality.
“Converting analog human speech to digital signals consumes a lot of power, If you can communicate using analog technology, you’re actually more power efficient,”Talla said.
This prototype works similar to Radio, The battery-less cell phone uses digital backscatter signals to dial the numbers, and then used analog backscatter signals to make the voice call.The cellphone will use background radio signals to power it. In the prototype device, the user will press a button to switch between these two modes.
The prototype was able to perform basic phone functions like transmitting and receiving data by using buttons for input. In future may sports all essential components with best in class concepts without a heavy battery pack. But if the phone is in the situation of dark space or low light and absence of radio signals, then communication is impossible as the phone cannot work without these sources.
We all use smartphones with decent or low battery life, spending lots of time in running for chargers and power sockets in all place. Imagine the smartphone which runs long without plugging it to a charger or even absence of USB ports. It would be amazing to have that featured smartphone but only expected to be real in future. We, humans, are in an urge to develop better battery backup for all our smartphone. smartphones manufacturers nowadays concentrate on performance, camera and display technologies, but powering all those we need a high-performance battery.
Only a few manufacturers give importance to more mAh batteries which standby up to 1 day of heavy usage. This prototype is in development stage further research may deal with all positive points to make it full fledged batteryless cellphone.
Stay updated with latest happenings of tech world on the go with Technobugg App, on Android and Windows.
Source: Indian Express
