So imagine that you’re walking down the street, following your usual morning routine, when suddenly, a poster of a local band stuck on a wall catches your eye. You then pull out your smartphone, open your radio app, and tune in to the FM radio signal written on the poster. As soon as you tune into the right frequency, your phone instantly starts playing a sample of the band’s music, as well as links to the band’s website.
Now this time, imagine that you’re going out for an early morning jog in the park. As you start to pick up the pace, your heart starts to beat faster and faster, and you begin to sweat. You then open up your smartphone, you open your radio app and tune into a certain frequency, and through the antennae embedded in the fabric of your t-shirt, it begins to send you information about your current vital signs, telling you whether you’re working out too fast or not fast enough, as well as how much longer you have to jog to lose a certain amount of calories.
Source: University of Washington
This is the kind of technology created by the University of Washington: “Smart” Posters and T-shirts that uses FM radio signals to transmit data to your smartphone or your car radio.
This technology started off as an idea to make everyday objects communicate with you and send you useful information, as suggested by Shyam Gollakota, the University’s lead faculty and assistant professor of computer science and engineering.
Source: University of Washington
How does this technology work, you may ask? Well it uses this technique called “backscattering”, wherein the smart poster or t-shirt uses a low-power reflector to encode audio and data into an unused frequency signal from an FM radio broadcast, which you can then use your phone or car’s radio to access or listen to. It’s kind of like “piggy backing” on a radio tower’s broadcast, and since it uses an unused frequency from it, the smart everyday item doesn’t affect the original broadcast transmission.
This technology is amazing because unlike Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signals, radio signals use a minimal amount of battery energy, and that they’re found almost everywhere in urban environments, which then opens up and endless amount of possibilities on what it can be used for. From street signs that detect traffic congestion on a certain street, to billboards that send you information on local tourist attractions, almost anything can be done with this technique. It was so successful that the results were published as a research paper in the university, and it will also be presented at the 14th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation in Boston this March.
A video demonstrating the FM Backscattering technology can be found below:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Aj056yXtq7g%3Fecver%3D1
Source: Youtube, University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering channel
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