Lord Drayson launches Freevolt energy harvesting device

In the historical surroundings of the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution, the chairman and CEO of Drayson Technologies laid out his vision for the new device, which he hopes will help power the Internet of Things (IoT). Alongside Freevolt, Drayson also revealed its first commercial application – a system called CleanSpace that combines an air quality sensor with an app to measure and record pollution levels.

“Companies have been researching how to harvest energy from WiFi, cellular and broadcast networks for many years,” said Drayson. “But it is difficult, because there is only a small amount of energy to harvest and achieving the right level of rectifying efficiency has been the issue – up until now.”

Freevolt’s patented technology was developed by an international team from Drayson Technologies and Imperial College London. The device - about the size of a smartphone - uses a multi-band antenna in combination with an “ultra-efficient rectifier”, converting the alternating current to direct current. The third core component is a power management module that tracks the power, enhancing the efficiency of the energy collection.