Single Chip Mote: A Platform For The Internet Of Things (IDTechEx Sensors USA 2016)

There are two fundamental problems that limit the true potential of wireless sensor networks. First is the cost of the sensor nodes and second is the limited battery lifetime. Our experience with semiconductors tells us that complete system integration on a single piece of silicon not only reduces the cost of the sensor node but also improves the system overall energy efficiency. This allows us to operate the millimetre-scale microsystems not only on energy harvesting (infinite battery lifetime) but also on sources that have limited energy capacity e.g. printed batteries.

 

In this talk we will present our latest research results addressing these two key problems. A single chip mote is proposed that requires zero external components and includes on chip computation, communication, integrated energy harvesting, and sensor interface. An ultra-low-power IEEE 802.15.4 standard compliant radio architecture is proposed which requires no crystals or other off-chip components. The hardware platform is designed to support a full standards-compliant wireless mesh networking stack, to be energy autonomous, and to be deployed at scale.

Dr. Khan is a research scholar at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) and is responsible for the system level design of the Single Chip Mote project. Dr. Khan did his PhD at the Univeristy of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 2013. In the summer of 2009, he worked in the RF division at Qualcomm in San Diego, CA. Between Feb 2014 and Nov 2014 he was at Psikick Inc. an ultra-low-power wireless startup where he developed a low-power crystal oscillator and a short-range radio front-end. Dr. Khan's current research interests are battery independent, robust, adaptive microsystems and their applications.

If you have a smartphone, an automobile, a wireless wearable activity tracker, you already own a couple dozen sensors whose underlying technologies were pioneered at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC). BSAC is the Graduated National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Micro/Nanoelectromechanical Sensors & Systems (MEMS).