Modern wearable devices allow for a myriad of technology to be mobile, such as health tracking, notifications, and so on. Due to their small battery capacity, they typically end up running out of power within a couple of days and require regular charging. This is the reason that inspired the students of University of Tokyo University of Tokyo to create the Meander Coil++ project with the aim of enabling the transmission of power at a watt scale and also ensuring safety.
Meander Coil++ is different in comparison to other wireless charging options in that it is one shirt with several tubes that are filled with metal liquid flowing in a horizontal direction. Through the application of an electric current that is applied to the coil, it creates a magnetic field that will cause current to flow through the device to charge. Thanks to this innovative design, researchers achieved the efficiency rate of 40% for AC-to AC transfers, and a maximum power of 52W.
The coil’s design is based on the 6.78MHz resonance frequency to energy transfer. This should be maintained no matter where the user is situated. To accomplish this it was necessary to use an Arduino Nano was combined with an array of capacitors as well as relays that switch on and off depending on the data of the monitoring module currently in use.
You can read the paper of the team here for more information on Meander Coil++ and take a look at the CHI 22 video below. It shows applications such as charging smartphones or a neck fan smartwatches, LEDs in multiple configurations as well as the Nano 33 BLE for activity and humidity monitoring.
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