Boeing has patented wireless charging technology

Wireless charging hasn’t met the success that was anticipated – and rightly so. Although existing wireless chargers do away with tangled wires, they are still heavily limited in usability. The device to be charged needs to be placed on the wireless charging pad and is rendered unusable while being charged.

Boeing has now patented a technology that can allow devices like phones and tablets to be used as usual while being charged wirelessly.

Existing devices require devices to be placed on the pad primary to maintain the orientation of the receiver coil in the device in the same direction as that of the transmitter coil in the pad for maximum energy transfer.

This invention now achieves the same maximum energy transfer without compromising on usability. It achieves this by steering a charging magnetic field in space towards the device to be charged.

The invention uses a set of orthogonal transmitter coils fed with alternating currents of differing magnitudes. By controlling the amplitude of current in each of the 3 coils, the position and orientation of the resultant magnetic field may be controlled.

In effect, the invention is capable of creating the charging magnetic field anywhere in space in the vicinity of the charger and in any desired orientation. Further, the invention detects the orientation of the device in three dimensions using sensors and then matches the orientation of the charging magnetic field with that of the device orientation for maximum energy transfer.

To create an even stronger magnetic field at the target object, one can install more transmitters

As a result, you can now talk over the phone while it’s being charged.

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