The European Edisons by Anand Kumar Sethi

Author:Anand Kumar Sethi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US, New York

Tesla’s Legacy: Wireless Power

Tesla’s work at Colorado Springs as well as at Wardenclyffe was principally focused on his desire to create a practical wireless power transmission system using the technology of the Tesla coil. As we now know, and as was predicted by a few leading scientists of that time, Tesla did not quite succeed in his quest to produce a self-generating constant power transmission system. He had not fully taken into account the fact that there would be losses of power, which would need to be made up by further inputs of mains electricity—hence not truly a constant self-sustaining system.

Presently, after his induction motor technology, which remains ubiquitous, it is arguably the use of ‘wireless power’ (though not quite in the way Tesla had actually intended) that seems to be attracting global attention.

Tesla’s dream for his Wardenclyffe endeavour was somehow to pulse a large broadband Tesla coil at about 8 Hertz to be in resonance with the standing electromagnetic waves between the Earth’s surface and the bottom of the ionosphere. These electromagnetic waves (at about 55 km above Earth’s surface) are termed the Schumann Cavity, named after the German scientist who discovered it.

The result of this resonance effect, Tesla believed, would be like a massive cosmic storage battery—his dream of free and unlimited energy. Inspired by the Indian sage Swami Vivekananda, Tesla even quipped, ‘Can man control the grandest, most awe inspiring of all processes in nature? If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural!’83

Tesla also, as we have seen, believed that the Earth itself could be visualized as one huge spherical conductor that could also be used for his wireless transmission of power. Alas, as we now know, this dream of wirelessly transmitting large amounts of power did not go beyond the initial experiments at Wardenclyffe.

With the advantage of modern technological developments, however, we also know that Tesla was actually spot on about the basic concept of wireless inductive power transfer. This concept entails energizing a primary transmitting coil using alternating current, which in turn induces an electric current in a secondary receiving coil placed in some proximity to the primary.

It is this principle of wireless inductive power, also known as remote power transmission, which has suddenly become a very exciting and commercially feasible concept. According to The Economist, in its 27 June 2015 issue, ‘The technology Tesla pioneered is already being used to charge mobile phones, and researchers are working on similarly wirelessly powered kitchen appliances, military equipment such as heads-up displays, and medical devices ranging from heart pumps to brain monitor. IHS, a market research firm, estimates that sales of such machines, now half a billion dollars a year, will grow 30-fold over the next decade.’84

This revived Tesla wireless power transfer technology is rapidly spreading to such hitherto unforeseen applications as wireless charging of electrical cars and vehicles, charging of phones in cars, cordless food processors, electronic watches and other ‘wearables’, and even robotic flying objects or drones.

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