Your body could become a battery for portable devices, thanks to a breakthrough in harnessing energy lost from 6G wireless communication.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have discovered that the wasted radio frequency (RF) energy emitted by visible light communication (VLC), if used to provide 6G, can be harnessed with small, inexpensive copper coils and transported to power other devices through the human body.
Read also: EV batteries have an impact on our health
6G is a future wireless communication technology that is under development and is expected to be deployed before the end of the decade.
According to a 2022 research paper, the core of this mechanism is based on VLC — which transmits data via extremely fast flashes of visible light from sources such as LEDs. VLC is a possible way in which 6G signals could be transmitted in the future. However, LEDs also emit RF signals as a form of energy leakage. The researchers found that this energy could be harvested by a copper coil, whose energy recycling efficiency increases when it touches human skin.
According to the study, skin contact increased efficiency by up to 10 times compared to using the coil alone. The human body was also shown to be better at enhancing the coil's ability to collect stray radio energy than wood, plastic, cardboard or steel.
Body batteries
Based on this discovery, the researchers created the “Bracelet+” — a simple copper coil that can be worn as a bracelet on the upper arm. The design can also be adapted to be worn as a necklace, anklet, belt, or ring, although the scientists found that the bracelet offered the optimal balance between energy collection and ease of use.
See also: Korea: CEO arrested for adding DDoS capability to satellite receivers
“The design is inexpensive — less than fifty cents,” the study authors said in a statement. “But the Bracelet+ can run down to microwatts, enough to support many sensors, such as health-monitoring sensors on the body, that need little power due to their low sampling rate and long sleep duration.”
Based on this, such technology could solve the problem of limited battery life in wearable devices. Even the most well-rated smartwatches, like the Apple Watch, typically require daily charging, which can reduce their usefulness if charging isn't part of your daily routine. And now that smart rings are becoming more popular, there are even more devices that require regular charging.
The energy harvesting technology supported by the Bracelet+ could, therefore, become a form of built-in charger for next-generation wearable devices, provided those devices have a way to receive power from the bracelet.
Of course, this depends on 6G networks using VLC, which are still a long way from being deployed, let alone widely adopted and integrated into consumer or industrial devices.
Read more: SharePoint RCE vulnerability allows domain compromise
This, however, could mark the beginning of the human body being transformed into a form of battery to power technology, only this time in a more harmonious way than “The Matrix” imagined.
“Finally,” said lead study author Jie Xiong, a professor of computer science at UMass Amherst, in a statement, “we want to be able to harvest wasted energy from all kinds of sources to power future technology.”
Source: livescience
