6G WIRELESS TECH FROM WASTE ENERGY USING HUMAN BODY - Scientific exploration.

6G WIRELESS TECH FROM WASTE ENERGY USING HUMAN BODY - Scientific exploration.

• The future of 6G telecommunications could come from Visible Light Communication.

• Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst believe using humans as part of the antenna system offers the most efficient,low-cost, innovative way to harvest waste energy.

• Humans as antennas to power 6G may be the most viable way to harvest additional energy that would otherwise get wasted.

• In the process, humans could wear coiled copper to power up the technology they use.

• Scientists have already started investigating Visible Light Communication (VLC), basically a wireless version of fiber optics, that uses flashes of light to transmit information. 

• VLC is quite simple and interesting. Instead of using radio signals to send information wirelessly, it uses the light from LEDs that can turn on and off, up to one million times per second.

• LEDs bulbs can then transmit data, and “anything with a camera, like our smartphones, tablets, or laptops could be the receiver,”.

• Since our homes, offices, streets, and vehicles are all lit by LEDs, we have an existing infrastructure that can deploy this technology.

• The downside of VLC comes from a high rate of “leakage” of energy with the emitting of side-channel radio wave signals. The researchers believe that if they can harvest the wasted radiofrequency (RF) energy, they can put it to good use by powering small electronic devices.

• After experimenting with wires, coils, and backgrounds, the scientists realized the human body offers the best medium—up to 10 times better than any other setting tested—for amplifying a copper coil’s ability to collect leaked RF energy. 

• 5G—what is considered the fifth, and most recent generation of cellular broadband networks—is still in its infancy. True 5G networks operate in millimeter-wave frequencies between 30 and 300 Gigahertz, which are 10 to 100 times higher frequency than previous 4G cellular networks. (Some cell phone providers cheat, however, by claiming the upper end of the 4G spectrum as 5G).

•  “Scientists want to be able to harvest waste energy from all sorts of sources in order to power future technology.”