U Washington Researchers Develop Energy-Efficient Wi-Fi
A team of computer scientists and electrical engineers at the University of Washington has developed a passive Wi-Fi system that can generate 802.11b Wi-Fi signals using 10,000 times less
power than present-day Wi-Fi and 1,000 times less power than Bluetooth Low Energy and ZigBee, according to a news release on UW's site.
Traditional
Wi-Fi technology uses both digital and analog components. While the
digital components are highly energy efficient, the analog ones are
not. Passive Wi-Fi solves this problem by decoupling the digital and
analog components of Wi-Fi transmissions, assigning the power-intensive
analog functions to a single networked device that is plugged into a
wall outlet. An array of sensors produces the information packets for
transmission by reflecting and absorbing the signal with a digital
switch, according to a news release from UW. The sensors are capable of
communicating with any Wi-Fi enabled device.
"All the networking,
heavy-lifting and power-consuming pieces are done by the one plugged-in
device," said Vamsi Talla, an electrical engineering doctoral student
who worked on the project. "The passive devices are only reflecting to
generate the Wi-Fi packets, which is a really energy-efficient way to
communicate."
In addition to reducing battery consumption on
smartphones and tablets, Passive Wi-Fi has the potential to support the
Internet of Things by enabling household device and wearable sensors to
communicate using minimal power. The MIT Technology Review has named
passive Wi-Fi on its list of 10 breakthrough technologies of 2016.
The
computer scientists and electrical engineers who developed Passive
Wi-Fi will present a paper about the technology at the at the 13th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation in March. The paper is available as a free, downloadable PDF from the University of Washington's site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].