The new American WiFi technology consumes less power than Bluetooth LE and Zigbee
On February 24, Beijing time, computer scientists and engineers from the University of Washington announced that they had found a way to make WiFi The power consumption of signal transmission is reduced to one ten thousandth of that of traditional methods.
The researchers will present this result at the 13th USENIX Network System Design and Implementation Symposium in March this year.
They said the power consumption of this passive WiFi system is even lower than technologies such as Bluetooth LE and Zigbee.
Recently, "MIT Technology Review" listed this achievement as one of the top 10 technological breakthroughs.
Other scientific and technological achievements also selected include rocket reuse technology attempted by SpaceX and Blue Origin, Tesla’s Autopilot autonomous driving system, and T cell-based immunotherapy.
The University of Washington team stated that current WiFi technology consumes high power, and passive WiFi will bring a variety of new applications.
For example, this technology could be used in smart home sensors to detect when a door is open or whether a child at home has returned from school.
"While many homes already have WiFi networks installed, it's not the best option," said Joshua Smith, assistant professor of engineering and electrical engineering.
If our WiFi system consumes only a few microwatts, it can be better than Bluetooth or Zigbee.
You can imagine using WiFi for everything.
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Researchers have successfully used passive WiFi technology to achieve data transmission at a rate of 11Mbps.
This rate is lower than the maximum rate of standard WiFi, but 11 times faster than the Bluetooth 1.0 standard.
The key to ensuring the data transfer rate while reducing power consumption is to separate the digital part of the system and The analog part.
The system developed by Smith and his team uses a single device to perform high-power analog functions, such as generating radio frequency signals at specific frequencies. style="padding: 0px 0px 15px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-size: 14px; font-family: simsun, Arial; white-space: normal;"> Another sensor array generates WiFi data packets by reflecting and receiving signals, and the digital switches used consume almost no power.
The sensor prototype can communicate with a distance of 100 feet (approximately
Bryce Kellogg, another co-author of the study, said: " Our sensors are able to communicate with routers, smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices with WiFi chips.
The cool thing is that all of these devices can decode the WiFi packets we generate, so you don't need special equipment.
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Through a company called Jeeva Wireless, this technology is trying to be commercialized.
Commercial products are expected to be available in 2 to 3 years.
