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Wireless sensors developed by researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology are assisted by common wiring in order to transmit information to and from almost any point in a building. The sensors can run for decades on a single watch battery.
These low-cost sensors that record a building’s temperature, humidity, light level, or air quality are central to the concept of a smart, energy-efficient building that automatically adapts to its surrounding.
Today’s wireless devices either transmit a signal only a few feet or use so much energy that they need frequent battery replacements – inhibiting the usage of this technology.
Shwetak Patel, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington, and his team have devised a way to use copper electrical wiring as a giant antenna that receives wireless signals at a set frequency. A low-power sensor that is within 10 to 15 feet of electrical wiring can use the antenna to send data to a single base station that is plugged in anywhere in the building.
Called Sensor Nodes Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure (SNUPI), the devices send signals through walls with ease using a fraction of the its power for data transmission.
“Existing nodes consumed the vast majority of their power, more than 90%, in wireless communication,” explains Gabe Cohn, a University of Washington doctoral student in electrical engineering and co-author of the study. “We’ve flipped that. Most of our power is consumed in the consumption, because we made the power for wireless communication almost negligible.”
The technology does not interfere with electricity flow or other emerging systems that use electrical wiring to transmit Ethernet signals between devices plugged into two outlets.
