Session 6: RF & Security

Multiple-In Multiple-Out (MIMO) radar and printed energy-autonomous mm-wave backscatter retrodirective wireless nodes: The birth of the Internet of Skins (IoS)
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
9:05 AM - 9:25 AM

Current low-energy wireless communications technologies constitute one of the main engines powering the meteoric growth of the modern Internet of Things (IoT) market. These allow the operation of battery-powered wirelessly-connected nodes to provide ubiquitous sensing, data relaying and real-time localization. Nevertheless, state-of-the-art wireless technologies suffer from a general inability to operate in the close vicinity of metallic objects, leading to bulky and conspicuous IoT devices, and impose a costly and environmentally-damaging battery-management and replacement burden upon its end-users. This effort reports the combined use of the quickly-maturing and cost-plummeting radar modules developed for automotive applications, along with that of printed-flexible mm-wave Van-Atta retrodirective “Smart Skin” nodes for ultra-low-cost and microWatt combined real-time localization and sensing. The system provides a breakthrough combination of properties including single-reader 75cm-resolution localization through ranging and angle-of-arrival determination, a sticker form factor that is fully-compatible with its installation onto metal surfaces, and several hundred meters of reading range. Moreover, these features are achieved using only low micro-Watt instant power consumption levels, 3 to 4 orders-of-magnitude less than the current state-of-the-art, and therefore allow the implementation of fully-self-powered sticker-nodes. In addition, its integration with a fully-printed nanomaterials-based chemical sensing array is also demonstrated. This wireless technology plants the seed of what could grow into one of the largest and most technologically-transformative offshoots of the printed and flexible hybrid electronics industry: the Internet of Skins.