by Mark Ollig
Trillions of tiny radio chip sensors may someday be
collecting information on all of Earth’s electronic devices.
Yes, this
is quite the prophetic statement by yours truly.
We know of
the Internet’s network; the many ways we connect to it, and obtain and share
content.
Well
folks, the infrastructure of the Internet is preparing to get a lot bigger.
An
engineering team at Stanford University has designed and demonstrated an ant-sized
model of a communications device to make the “Internet of Things,” or IoT, a
reality.
A video I
watched described IoT as being how the Internet will evolve from connecting
with computers, cellphones, tablets, and smart devices, to also having interconnection
with other devices – or things.
These
include business and home appliances, transportation networks, healthcare,
energy and utility monitoring systems, manufacturer’s plant machinery, and
other parts of our infrastructure, such as light bulbs, and even our coffee
machines.
Instead of
remaining static, these devices will be able to communicate their condition,
allowing decisions to be made to better utilize their function, and obtain
beneficial information.
“We’ve
figured out how to design a radio in which everything . . . all the
functionality of the radio, is integrated on a single silicon chip,” said Amin
Arbabian, primary designer, and assistant professor of Stanford’s department of
electrical engineering.
These
radio chips are the latest development in connecting wireless devices to the
Internet.
This tiny
radio chip, which is a few millimeters, or about 0.119 inches long, includes an
antenna array. It will compute, execute, communicate, and carry out logical
commands from any location on the planet – when connected to the infrastructure
of the Internet.
These
chips operate using low-power, ambient radio frequency (RF) waves, instead of a
conventional power source.
The
circuitry of their architecture allows them to harness the power of incoming
signals, and communicate using the 24 and 60 gigahertz frequency bands to
transmit and receive.
Since
there is no battery needed, these chips would last for many years.
This
reminds me of the crystal radio sets from the early days of amplitude modulated
(AM) broadcast radio.
Those
crystal sets needed no independent power source, as they operated over the
energy received from radio waves in the air captured by the crystal set’s
antenna.
Stanford
said this device is energy efficient. “It gathers all the power it needs from
the same electromagnetic waves that carry signals to its receiving antenna.”
Imagine
having one of these chips connected to every electronic device.
These
chips would communicate information about the specific device each one was
connected to including its operational status, data results received from the
device, its geographic location, its operating environment – and more.
It all
boils down to having a radio chip responsive to commands, and to control and
obtain information from the device they are connected to.
These tiny
radio chips could be embedded directly into the electronic gadgets and devices
as they were being made in the manufacturer’s facility, or individually
installed onto existing devices.
Of course,
today, some manufacturers are using radio-frequency identification (RFID)
circuit board tags to identify specific products, and track their location as
they are shipped to distribution points across the country.
I can see
large warehouses with thousands of their stocked items implanted with ant-sized
radio chips.
Identification
and location of inventory could be viewed using a special Web program, as all
of these inventoried items would be connected to the Internet of Things.
These
radio chips can be economically mass-produced; it has been estimated to cost
only pennies to make one.
So, how
will each of these trillions of chips be able to uniquely identify themselves
and the devices they are connected to?
When we
want to communicate with an individual, we dial their unique 10-digit telephone
number.
And, so it
will be with these new chips connected to a device; each will have a unique
“telephone number” or, in this case, a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address,
for communicating with us, or whatever software program they are associated
with.
My guess
is these chips, and all others comprising the Internet of Things, will be using
the IPv6 Internet protocol addressing system – and some sort of encryption for
security.
As you
know, IPv6 has enough capacity to provide unique IP addresses for a nearly unlimited
number of devices.
And that
number is 340 trillion, trillion, trillion unique IP addresses, which should be
enough to last a long, long, long time.
Alright,
it should actually last forever.
The future
Internet of Things may be linked, in part, using Stanford’s new, silicon radio
chip design.
“The next
exponential growth in connectivity will be connecting objects together and
giving us remote control through the Web,” said Arbabian.
Yes,
indeed, I can see myself in the future; sitting at the kitchen table with my
laptop computer, engaged in a conversation over a cup of coffee with my coffee
machine.
Stanford University’s Amin Arbabian created a short video
which can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/lrs53z4.
Below photo source: http://news.stanford.edu
