In a world where the energy demands have outnumbered the available power sources, the importance of power saving technologies is supreme.
Now there’s a a study conducted by the University of Washington in which a unique system has been devised through which energy consumption through Wi-Fi can be significantly reduced.
A group of computer scientists and electrical engineers from the University of Washington have developed a new Wi-Fi system, called as Passive Wi-Fi, which consumes less 1,000 times less power than existing energy-efficient wireless communication platforms. They have demonstrated a method through which it is possible to generate Wi-Fi transmissions with 10,000 times less power that current systems.
The technology has also been named one of the 10 breakthrough technologies of 2016 by MIT Technology Review. The project was jointly funded by the National Science Foundation, the University of Washington and Qualcomm.
Here are some of its features:
- Passive Wi-Fi can for the first time transmit Wi-Fi signals at bit rates of up to 11 megabits per second that can be decoded on any of the billions of devices with Wi-Fi connectivity. These speeds are lower than the maximum Wi-Fi speeds but 11 times higher than Bluetooth.
- As power-intensive functions are handled by a single device plugged into the wall, passive sensors use almost no energy to communicate with routers, phones and other devices.
- An array of sensors produces Wi-Fi packets of information using very little power by simply reflecting and absorbing that signal using a digital switch. During the research, it was also been found that passive Wi-Fi sensors and a smartphone can communicate even at distances of 100 feet between them.
Here is a look at the video which fully explains the system :
(Feature image source: YouTube/Passive Wi-Fi)