Pittsburgh-based Powercast expects to add new technical staff to support its push this year to commercialize several applications of its unique, patented technologies for transmitting electricity without wires.
At last month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company introduced a line of low-wattage decorative lighting–adding ornaments to an earlier release of a Christmas tree lit by wireless lights. It also demonstrated the feasibility of an eco-friendly hotel room that employs the company’s power-caster and power-harvester modules. Gone are the days of changing batteries for television handsets and other controls, fire and smoke detectors, and many other sensors.
“We are now actively shopping our core technology to people who make the electronic products that go into hotel rooms,” says Steve Day, Vice President, Head of Global Sales and Marketing.
The company has reached an agreement for a defense application of the technology, which is protected by 12 issued core patents and 155 worldwide patents pending, and has entered into a nondisclosure agreement with a leading automobile manufacturer, Day says. He has been negotiating with at least 5 original equipment developers and manufacturers since the firm completed tests-of-concept for some 20 prototypes of low milliwatt applications last year.
“No one else in the world has assembled the intellectual property that we have for the development of this technology,” Day says.
For energy management, process control, and a host of security applications, the technology adapts easily to existing environments, delivering electrical power without requiring a rewiring of already built spaces, in the same way that a wireless network broadcasts data between computers from room to room without the need to rewire a house; in this case, converting electro-magnetic energy to electricity.
The technology also offers industrial applications, particularly where it is dangerous or difficult to operate and maintain sensors–such as chemical manufacturing and petroleum refining. Another notable feature: it can capture and use ambient energy that otherwise goes to waste. The company also has been exploring ways to illuminate low-wattage light emitting diodes (LEDs) from the power produced when a cell phone rings–and has plans for this type of application.
According to Day, the company will be hiring electrical engineers and experts in radio frequency technology to capture the opportunities ahead for Powercast.
Source: Powercast, Steve Day
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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