Instead, we are surrounded by technology that may work, but which is clunky, ugly, boring, and unpleasant to use. That pretty well describes most of the devices we have to work with in our daily lives. The most extreme example of this problem we typically encounter is a desktop computer. Such a machine usually has the following:
- a box containing the processor, memory, disk drives, and various interface cards
- a monitor
- a keyboard
- a mouse
- a set of speakers
- a printer
- lots and lots of cables, including power cables for the processor, monitor, speakers and printer; data/signal cables connecting the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers and printer to the processor box; a network cable connecting the processor to some sort network port
One solution to the rat's nest problem is to put as much as possible into one box. Apple went that way with some of its designs and really worked at minimizing the number of cables. This is one of the reasons that Apple computers are considered to be more attractive than the typical PC. However even the admittedly classier Apple machines still have some cables. Laptop and palm computers represent other attempts to put everything into one package. However, they too reveal substantial shortcomings of one kind or another due to their small size and limited battery life.
Cables and wires make computers ugly, but they make other things ugly and awkward as well. For instance, go to a gym and watch someone trying not to drop a CD player as they struggle with the headphones while they are madly pedalling away on an elliptical trainer. (That problem has been slightly alleviated by the smaller and lighter Ipod, but even it has a wire to get tangled up in.) Also, you have doubtless seen someone fighting with a microphone cable on a stage, or perhaps have yourself cursed at the electric cord of your vacuum as it once again flops into your path while you are sweeping. Interestingly, the creators of the Star Trek: The Next Generation science fiction television series depicted the Borg (who are the primary villains in the series) as having cables and tubes connecting various parts of their own bodies. Cables, wires, and tubes represent the very soul of technological ugliness.
By contrast, one of the reasons that wireless household phones and cellphones are so wildly popular is simply because they have no wires. Likewise, coffee shops and bookstores have attracted a whole new clientele by providing cheap or free wireless Internet connnections. One of the oldest wireless technologies is the lowly pager, which is now essential in many professions such as medicine.
To me, the greatest contributor to the whole problem is the very notion of the cable. Somehow we have fixated on the idea that to get power or signal from one point to another we have to have a wire between the two points. What would a proper replacement to wires and cables look like? We have various wireless technologies to use for the signal portion of this problem, and a few of those (such as Bluetooth and 802.11*) are starting to make real in-roads in some applications. Still, it is not at all common to use those technologies within a computer. We still have printer cables, video cables, speaker cables, etc., to connect the various components. There is a considerable ways to go on that front.
Even if we are making progress on handling the wireless transmission of signals, we continue to neglect the other part of the problem, namely power transmission. At this point we really only ever see two solutions for powering our devices: batteries and power cables. This continues to baffle me. Nikola Tesla had working wireless power systems in use in his laboratories in the 1890s to power appliances on his workbenches. Have we really made no progress at all in this area in the intervening 110+ years? It would seem to me that one could do a great deal with inductive coupling. Tesla's system used this idea, with a coil running around the perimeter of a room's ceiling, and every appliance having an antenna coil to pick up the radiated power.
If you are uncomfortable living inside such a coil there are other possibiities. Imagine, for example, this power system:
- The basis of the system is a floor consisting of interconnecting squares.
- Each square has AC power connections to its four edges, so that power can flow freely among all the squares in the floor.
- Each square has a large, flat induction coil built into it, with the axis of the coil perpendicular to the square.
- Each square has a small bit of circuitry to control whether power is applied to the inductive coil. This circuit would be similar to the loop sensor embedded in streets to detect the passage of vehicles.
- Any appliance needing power, such as a floor lamp, has a foot or pad that contains another coil similar to the ones in the floor squares.
- When you place such an appliance on a floor square, the square's detection circuit senses that there is an inductive load above the square, and applies full power to the coil. This in turn induces an AC current in the coil in the foot, which then powers the device.
- You may move the device anywhere in the room, being limited only to placing it so as to adequately intersect a floor square.
I'm not sure that the above scheme is the best one, but I'm certain that some scheme like this could work. More importantly, just using this idea in a thought experiment helps free one from the literal shackle of the power cable. I might point out that the Latin word for cable in the title of this posting (ancoralia) comes from the same root as the word for anchor. A cable is an anchor and keeps you fastened to one spot. If you want to live like Buck Rogers, you must be free to move, and cannot afford any kind of anchor.
Updated 1/20/2007:
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10 comments:
Hey Pop! Very happy to see you've joined the blogoverse!
A couple of thoughts on your idea for wireless AC through what I'd call inductive power tiles:
• It sounds very interesting and quite feasible as a solution for getting rid of the un-needed clutter & tangle of AC mains cords.
• It would also potentially eliminate several irritating audio equipment problems with direct AC connections, such as ground loops and distortion in the the waveform of the alternating current. Ostensibly devices could include power filtering in their inductive input section, making sure you had a pure 60Hz sine wave.
• This would bring about one major safety issue, however, at least in the minds of most equipment manufacturers: lack of a safety ground or "earth" wire.
Another thing that came to mind while reading was an issue that is scaring many wireless equipment manufacturers: the rapidly decreasing availability of radio frequencies, due to the increase in digital TV and Radio, cellphones, and other wireless devices. Soon, we're going to need to find some other domain in which to send signals, as the airwaves become densely packed with transmissions.
Anyhow, I've babbled enough. Welcome to bloggy-land, and hope to read more from you soon!!
Cheers,
-Tom
Regarding Tom's comment about safety grounds: I had not thought about that issue, but I wonder how important it is if your appliances are all low-voltage. For example, the old-style electric drills ran off of 120v AC house current. That could do serious damage to you, so you would definitely want it grounded. Cordless drills, however, run off much lower voltage DC and apparently don't pose as much of a hazard.
Regarding both Tom's and Sid's comments about shrinking bandwidth: One very interesting technology that could play an interesting role in all of this is magnetic induction. Typically this technology only reaches a meter or two out, and so has much less problem with mutual interference. Here is an interesting NY Times article on some early applications. This looks to me like an excellent candidate for inter-component wireless connections.
--Bill
Low voltages and direct current definitely would provide a greater degree of safety for a modular induction-based power system. And I'm guessing the various insurance/safety testing companies (Underwriters Laboratory, etc.) would be happier with low voltage DC as well.
As for the RF bandwidth issues, the FCC is already clamping down on regulating various frequencies and reserving them for specific use, especially for public safety/emergency transmission applications.
I'm guessing they'll become all the more strict as the skies get increasingly crowded with packets and other flying invisible junk.
I'm interested to hear more about packet radio and various other interleaving and signal multiplexing techniques for digital RF transmission, since that's the future of the audio industry, especially with wireless mics.
The NY Times article on the short-range magnetic induction technology was interesting to read... What I want to know is: when do I get my inductive loop headphones for my iPod? :P
I'd like to propose that Tesla's wireless power was urban legend.
Erik
Regarding direct current, it's worth remembering that any wirelessly transmitted power must be alternating, at least while it is transmitting wirelessly. Any device using direct current would have to change the wireless signal to direct after receiving it.
Regarding Erik's suspicion that Tesla's wireless power transmission was urban legend: There are two different things here. Tesla did in fact repeatedly demonstrate inductively coupled wireless lamps, as described in several biographies, including Margaret Cheney's well-regarded "Tesla: A Man Out Of Time". You are probably referring to Tesla's more grandiose plan for transmitting large amounts of power over considerable distances. While it appears that he may have demonstrated this a couple of times, his approach to it now seems intrinsically impractical, both from financial and engineering points of view. Certainly his vision of a globe-girdling wireless power grid now seems like a fantasy. I am interested in the more modest goal of transmitting power across, or even just within, a room.
Regarding Erik's comment about the necessity of using AC in inductive coupling: You are quite right. I was thinking more about the safety issues, and how all current cordless appliances use DC from batteries. Sadly, there will doubtless be some conversion losses in going from the induced AC to pure DC. Too bad nobody knows how to build an AC battery. :)
I see three practical problems with wireless power:
1) Waste. When you are broadcasting power, it means that the power is being spent on some spherical region, where only a small fraction is actually intercepted by devices.
2) Safety: Interaction with human tissue, and/or other matter. You have to use some frequency that won't cook any organic lifeforms, and also won't start any inorganic materials on fire. At the same time, you want to broadcast at a power density that is useful. Standard houseold current is 15-20 amps, although only certain devices actually use that kind of amperage (hair dryers, microwaves, etc).
3) Billing: When you are broadcasting power, how do you know who is using it, and how much?
Bill, I like the idea of the cordless utopia. Some thoughts:
Cords are being replaced for the transfer of information by Bluetooth and similar technologies. Let's assume these continue to evolve in intelligence so that you could, for example, assemble an entire audio/video entertainment system just by putting the components in the room. They would all recognize each other, connect properly, and be ready to go just by setting them down. A little voice activated control would help. "XM radio, use the new Klipsch speakers. No, switch back to the JBLs. Okay, switch to my headphones." Or, just set down some computer components and they figure out how to connect. Security, exclusivity, privacy can all be achieved. Seems like cordless exchange of information is very doable with current technology. However, you need power.
Wires are inherently efficient in transmitting power. When disconnected they draw no power. When connected, line losses are trivial. Plus they don't create a lot of electrical noise like an always-on induction coil might. We just need more convenient ways to plug things in.
Imagine a desktop with nano power path fabricators engineered in. You set a printer down on it and it figures out that there are power contacts on the feet and it immediately builds a power path to the contacts, queries the device, and supplies the right type of power, even a ground. It's all shielded, of course, and dissolves the instant you pick up the printer. The nano power path fabricators create "sticky" connections to the contacts on the feet and won't be disrupted by a little vibration, bumping, or accumulation of dirt. Or, alternatively, all electrical devices have small UPS units built in and can tolerate a minute of power interruption so you can move them around without disrupting their operation. Where does the desk get its power? It sits on a floor which is similarly "empowered."
Charge your cordless or cell phone? Lay it contact-side down on the nearest dresser. A lamp? Sit it on any horizontal surface. How about a power drill? Cordless, of course, and recharging every time you set it down. Your daughter doesn't get a shock walking across the floor with tap shoes on because when queried about their power needs the tap shoes don't respond.
While waiting for the nano power path fabricators to be developed, put a couple hundred outlets into every room at every usable height. Put outlets all over the desks, the shelves, the dresser tops. Conceal them into design elements of the baseboards or covered by a self-healing decorative membrane. Have so many so conveniently located that no power cord has to be longer than six inches.
Well, there are a few ideas for a cordless future.
Jim--
I like your idea of adaptive contact power routing. It probably wouldn't even require nanotechnology, just arrays of small contacts, suitably insulated between contacts on the same array, with logic circuits to prevent shorts. It would be interesting to prototype a workbench surface that worked this way. As flooring, one would have to be careful about bare-footed walkers, though!
By the way, I deleted the first of your duplicate posts.
By the way #2, I started another thread on this topic to discuss a real, honest-to-goodness wireless power technology you can buy from ThinkGeek.
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