Ambient Backscatter: Wireless Communication Out of Thin Air [pdf]

Re:Ambient Backscatter: Wireless Communication Out of Thin A... by ricardobeat on Sunday July 07, 2013 @11:38PM (#6005043)

This is a great step towards the internet of things. The main roadblock for attaching sensors to everything right now is power. Even with month or even year-long battery life the maintenance burden and cost makes it much less attractive.

If you could just stick a rice-sized sensor wherever you want and not worry about battery life we'd all have 'smart houses' by now.

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Re:Ambient Backscatter: Wireless Communication Out of Thin A... by StandardFuture on Monday July 08, 2013 @12:04AM (#6005123)

This could not be used for 'smart houses' .. willscott had it right when he mentioned RFID stuff. You cannot have 'ultra-low power' and have a transmitter powerful enough on a WLAN.

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Re:Ambient Backscatter: Wireless Communication Out of Thin A... by ricardobeat on Monday July 08, 2013 @03:07AM (#6005535)

I'm not sure what you mean. This thing is not a transmitter, it piggybacks on existing waves by modulating their reflections - that's the whole point of the paper. It won't have to compete with a WLAN.

Presumably range can be increased, specially if the principle is adapted to use that WLAN's 2.4ghz stronger signal instead of VHF.

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