Battery-free cellphone by PIO team |
Scientists, including those of Indian origin, have developed a new battery-less cell phone for the first time, that consumes almost zero power and runs by harvesting energy from ambient radio signals or light. The team also made Skype calls using its battery-free phone, demonstrating that the prototype made of commercial, off-the-shelf components can receive and transmit speech and communicate with a base station. Shyam Gollakota, associate professor at the University of Washington (UW) said. The battery-free cell phone takes advantage of tiny vibrations in a phone`s microphone or speaker that occur when a person is talking into a phone or listening to a call. To transmit speech, the phone uses vibrations from the device`s microphone to encode speech patterns in the reflected signals. To receive speech, it converts encoded radio signals into sound vibrations that that are picked up by the phone`s speaker. In the prototype device, the user presses a button to switch between these two `transmitting` and `listening` modes. Using Skype, researchers were able to receive incoming calls, dial out and place callers on hold with the battery- free phone. The team designed a custom base station to transmit and receive the radio signals.
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