This development has the potential of changing the way the Internet of Things (IoT) devices communicate and increasing the number of “connected” gadgets.
A team of researchers from the University of Washington has designed a new communication system that uses radio frequency signals as a power source, not batteries, and reuses existing Wi Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity to devices. Called ‘Wi-Fi backscatter’, this technology, claimed the team, was the first that can connect battery-free devices to Wi Fi infrastructure.
The tech may be commercially available soon as the team behind it plans to start a company based on it. It has already filed for the necessary patents.
So, imagine your wristwatch or your headband communicating directly with your Online profiles, storing information about your daily activities where you can best access it – all without any batteries as power source.
According to an article announcing the system on the University’s Site, “this not-so-distant Internet of Things reality” will extend connectivity to perhaps billions of devices. Sensors could be embedded in everyday objects to help monitor and track everything from the structural safety of bridges to the health of your heart. What was a hurdle in this path before, said the article author Michelle Ma, was having a way to give cheap power supply and connect these devices to the Net. That was now possible with the new system.
Shyam Gollakota, a UW Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, was quoted as saying, “We now have the ability to enable Wi Fi connectivity for devices while consuming orders of magnitude less power than what Wi Fi typically requires.”
The researchers will publish their results at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Data Communication‘s annual conference this month in Chicago.
Other co-authors include David Wetherall, a UW Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; and Bryce Kellogg and Aaron Parks, both doctoral students in electrical engineering. The research was funded by the UW Commercialization Gap Fund, the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship, Washington Research Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the UW.
The team of engineers have developed an ultra-low power tag prototype with an antenna and circuitry that can talk to Wi Fi-enabled laptops or smartphones while consuming negligible power.
These tags work by essentially “looking” for Wi Fi signals moving between the router and a laptop or smartphone. They encode data by either reflecting or not reflecting the Wi Fi router’s signals, slightly changing the wireless signal. Wi Fi-enabled devices like laptops and smartphones would detect these minute changes and receive data from the tag.
Here’s a video courtesy the University of Washington:
Image Credit: University of Washington
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