Stickers Could Work As A Cheap Wireless Sensor Network

Most of us would agree that the folks over in Japan are an ingenious lot – not only have they come up with commercially available exoskeletons, their NMEMS technology research association has also disclosed that they have discovered on churning out an amazing new sensor module. This new sensor module measures all of 1mm thin, where it is 2cm x 5cm in size, making it somewhat like a kind of sticker. Still, that is more than enough space to place within an array of monitoring abilities, power generation, and wireless communication capabilities.

These pseudo-stickers will be able to keep track on different environmental conditions, including dust, CO2, and VOC levels, ambient temperature as well as the strength of nearby electromagnetic fields. At the bottom layer lies a small solar setup which will be able to generate and stash the relevant amount of power. In fact, these sensors sip just approximately 150μW of juice, and since the existing photoelectric layer is capable of producing around 80% of that, more work is required before the first batch of prototypes are delivered in 2014. What other practical applications can you think of with these “stickers”?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: sensor, wireless