Internet of Plastic Things: Detergent Containers and Pill Bottles Could Soon Order Their Own Refills
takyon writes:
Here Comes the Internet of Plastic Things, No Batteries or Electronics Required
[Researchers] at the University of Washington have devised a way of using 3D printed plastic to create objects that communicate with smartphone or other Wi-Fi devices without the need for batteries or electronics.
This research builds on previous work at the University of Washington dating back to 2014 in which another research team employed battery-less chips that transmit their bits by either reflecting or not reflecting a Wi-Fi router's signals. With this kind of backscattering, a device communicates by modulating its reflection of the Wi-Fi signal in the space.
The challenge with existing Wi-Fi backscatter systems is that they require multiple electronic components, including RF switches that can toggle between reflective and non-reflective states, digital logic that controls the switch to encode the appropriate data as well as a power source/harvester that powers all these electronic components.
In this latest research, the University of Washington team has been able to leverage this Wi-Fi backscatter technology to 3D geometry and create easy to print wireless devices using commodity 3D printers. To achieve this, the researchers have built non-electronic and printable analogues for each of these electronic components using plastic filaments and integrated them into a single computational design.
The researchers are making their CAD models available to 3D printing enthusiasts so that they can create their own IoT objects. The designs include a battery-free slider that controls music volume, a button that automatically orders more cornflakes from an e-commerce website and a water sensor that sends an alarm to your phone when it detects a leak.
"We are using mechanism actuation to transmit information wirelessly from these plastic objects," explained Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor at the University of Washington, who with students Vikram Iyer and Justin Chan, published their original paper on the research in 2017 [open, DOI: 10.1145/3130800.3130822].
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