The world is still settling into 5G, but that hasn’t stopped researchers from setting their sights on the next iteration, 6G wireless tech. When it hits, 6G may be up to 9,000 times faster than 5G—fast enough for us to communicate via hologram. However, to power that speed, researchers are looking at an unconventional power source: the human body.
This development comes as researchers strive to find a way to incorporate Visible Light Communication (VLC) into 6G telecommunications. But there’s one problem: VLC is extremely wasteful. In fact, the amount of energy that VLC wastes makes many reluctant to rely on it. That could change, though, with the development of Bracelet+, a small but mighty antenna that could collect the leaked RF VLC puts off.
But first, they had to find a good way to maximize the collection of that energy so that it could be repurposed into 6G wireless tech. After trying a wall, a phone, and even other devices like a tablet or laptop, the researchers decided to attach the Bracelet+ to the human body and see what happened.
Surprisingly, they found that the human body is the most efficient medium for amplifying the wire’s ability to collect leaked RF energy. In fact, it was able to amplify it up to ten times more than the coil did so alone. The final design—which became Bracelet+—is designed to be worn on the upper forearm. It’s a simple coil of copper wire that can also be adapted to be a ring, belt, anklet, or necklace.
Additionally, the researchers note in their paper, which actually won the prestigious Best Paper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, that the design is extremely cheap. With such an easily scaleable design, the future of 6G wireless tech could be closer than ever, at least in terms of figuring out how to harvest all that leaked energy.
