On August 18th, Hanyang University announced that professor Lee Byung-hun's research team from the Department of Biomedical Engineering developed a technology that enables bidirectional data transfer during wireless charging. The technology is drawing attention of industry since it is expected to drastically increase the speed of data transfer and able to be used not only in micro-inserted medical devices operated by wireless charging but also in NFC card, mobile and IoT devices.

Conventional data transmission technology widely used in transportation cards, access cards and various mobile devices is restricted in uses under wireless charging. Since the conventional technology does not allow simultaneous bidirectional transmission of data during wireless charging, data must be exchanged through a time-varying system at the scheduled time.

The Data transmission methods using a time lag has had shortages: it takes much time since data cannot be sent until the other-sided data is completely transmitted, and additional protocol for communication and memory to store the sending data is needed. 

To solve these problems, professor Lee's team developed a wireless charging coil in multiple resonance form to transfer data bidirectionally and simultaneously. Professor Lee’s team succeeded in drastically reducing time and power consumption for data transmission by using "Frequency shift modulation" which modulates the frequency of magnetic field when transmitting data and taking "Load modulation" which can change the modulated frequency size when receiving the data. The technology is evaluated to be advantageous for commercialization as it has strength to reduce device volume and cost.

Professor Lee Byung-hun commented “We newly designed the conventional wireless charging coilm, enabling bidirectional data transmission during wireless charging without additional hardware.” He added “This is the first technology in the world, and the technology will have high knock-on effects and diverse applications since short distance transmission in wireless charging is used in numerous fields such as biomedical/wearable devices, NFC card and IoT devices.

Meanwhile, the research paper, supported by Hanyang University's new faculty assignment, will be published in "IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics", the most prestigious academic journal in the field of electrical and electronic devices in November issue.