Wearable devices for life-logging and healthcare have been studied, but the need for frequent charging imposes inconvenience for long-term use. Integrating textile-based wireless chargers (i.e., coil) into clothing enables sustainable wearable computing by charging the on-body devices in use. However, the electromagnetic field generated by conventional coil chargers strongly interferes with human body, and the high resistance of conductive threads leads to inefficient power delivery. This paper presents Meander Coil++, enabling safe, energy-efficient, and body-scale wireless power delivery. Meander Coil++ uses a wiring pattern that suppresses electromagnetic exposure to the human body without compromising power delivery performance and a liquid-metal-based low-loss conductive cord. With these advancements, Meander Coil++ transmits a few watts of power to on-body devices at 25% DC-to-DC efficiency while complying with international safety guidelines regarding electromagnetic exposure. We envision Meander Coil++ can maintain multiple devices on body for weeks beyond the confines of their small battery capacity.

Ryo Takahashi, Wakako Yukita, Tomoyuki Yokota, Takao Someya, and Yoshihiro Kawahara, “Meander Coil++: A Body-scale Wireless Power Transmission using Safe-to-body and Energy-efficient Transmitter Coil,” Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings (ACM CHI), Hybrid, April 2022. Best Paper Award

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