Freevolt turns radio waves into power for IoT devices

On Wednesday, Drayson Technologies introduced a new technology that harvests energy from ambient radio waves.

London-born Drayson, a lifelong asthma sufferer, thus hopes that an army of CleanSpace-wearing citizen scientists will help map carbon-monoxide hotspots in unprecedented detail and clean up the air in our cities.

The air is now saturated with radio waves now that Wi-Fi networks and mobile phones are everywhere. Drayson’s Freevolt technology won’t be directly available to consumers, but the company is aiming at selling licenses to use its technology and patents. Such as powering miniature sensors for the forthcoming Internet of Things revolution, or providing the juice for a wearable tech wristband that never needs charging.

A new invention allows devices to stay up on the Internet of Things despite having no visible means of support.

The solution involved the development of a multi-band antenna that is able to harvest the energy from a broad spectrum of radio bands, the improvement of a component named a rectifier which transforms the energy into electric current, and the creation of an optimized power management system that makes sure that all spare energy is collected.

“But it is hard because there is only a small amount of energy to harvest”, he said. Initially the technology will only be available in the United Kingdom, but there are plans to launch the device internationally in the future.

The company is looking for partners, hackers and even garden shed inventors to adopt Freevolt and come up with applications for the remarkable device, but to set the ball rolling it has come up with its own Freevolt-powered product. However, with a demonstration in which he showed how much latent radio frequency energy was in the room and then used it to power a loudspeaker, Lord Drayson seems to have overcome this obstacle.

“It is the nature of broadcast transmissions that, when you broadcast, only a few of the energy is received and used”. “We were impressed with the Freevolt technology and its wide applicability to power the internet of things and look forward to continuing the collaboration”, said Frazer Bennett, technology expert at PA.