最好的手機(jī)電池或許是沒有電池

隨著手機(jī)、汽車和其他電力需求量較大的設(shè)備在我們的生活中日益普及，尋找更好的電池，可能會(huì)成為科技行業(yè)的終極軍備競賽。但華盛頓大學(xué)的研究人員或許已經(jīng)顛覆了這個(gè)行業(yè)。研究人員宣布通過不使用電池的手機(jī)進(jìn)行了首次蜂窩式通話。

這款原型機(jī)完全采用了市場上現(xiàn)有的零件，使用無線電源和小型太陽能充電器供電。當(dāng)然這款手機(jī)確實(shí)非常簡陋：除了收發(fā)語音信號(hào)，支持一副耳機(jī)外，該手機(jī)沒有任何其他功能。既沒有屏幕也沒有內(nèi)存。使用這款設(shè)備接通通話后，要按下一個(gè)按鍵才能開始對(duì)話。

它需要依靠附近的基站，將信號(hào)中繼到手機(jī)的蜂窩網(wǎng)絡(luò)。研究人員使用的是Skype。基站提供了手機(jī)的大部分運(yùn)行電力，這些電力來自于無線信號(hào)。

這款手機(jī)可利用反向散射生成自己的信號(hào)。這項(xiàng)技術(shù)在無線射頻識(shí)別芯片中已經(jīng)很常見，這種芯片在現(xiàn)有的無線信號(hào)中輸入新信息，然后反向反射到接收器中。

這款手機(jī)的一項(xiàng)重要?jiǎng)?chuàng)新是使用模擬語音編碼而非數(shù)字編碼，研究人員稱，模擬技術(shù)可以大幅節(jié)省電力。用來擴(kuò)大手機(jī)信號(hào)范圍的補(bǔ)充電力，來自于光電二極管，實(shí)質(zhì)上是一個(gè)微型太陽能面板。

簡而言之，短期內(nèi)別指望能在這款設(shè)備上一直玩《糖果傳奇》。但研究人員預(yù)測，未來類似的無線技術(shù)將被廣泛應(yīng)用到手機(jī)信號(hào)塔或Wi-Fi路由器當(dāng)中，使無電池通話變得無處不在，當(dāng)然前提是我們不會(huì)完全放棄語音通話，轉(zhuǎn)而選擇短信、Snap Stories或其他通信方法。

6月30日發(fā)表的一篇研究論文詳細(xì)介紹了這款手機(jī)。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓

The quest for better batteries may be the ultimate technology industry arms race as phones, cars, and other power-hungry devices proliferate in our lives. But researchers at the University of Washington may have upended that equation, making what they say is the first cellular call from a mobile phone with, well, no battery at all.

The prototype phone, built with off-the-shelf components, runs on a combination of wireless power and tiny solar chargers. It’s certainly barebones: the phone can send and receive voice signals, drive a pair of head phones, and not much else. It has neither screen nor memory. Once you connect a call using the device, you have to push a button to talk.

The phone must rely on a nearby base station that relays its signal to the cellular network, in this case via Skype. The base station provides the bulk of the phone’s operational power, which the phone harvests from radio signals.

The phone generates its own signal using backscatter, a technique already common in RFID—as in radio frequency identification—chips that encodes existing radio signals with new information and reflects them back to a receiver.

One of the phone's key innovations is the use of analog rather than digital voice encoding, which the researchers say saves a substantial amount of power. Supplemental power to increase the device’s range comes from photodiodes, essentially tiny solar panels.

In short, don't expect to play endless games of Candy Crush on this device anytime soon. But the researchers envision a future where similar wireless technology is widely integrated into cell towers or Wi-Fi routers, making battery-free phone calls ubiquitous—assuming, of course, that we don't give up on voice calls entirely in favor of text messages, Snap Stories, or other communications methods.

The phone is described in detail in a research paper published on June 30th.