Ken
O's mini radio antenna, at less than one-tenth of an inch on a
computer chip, is closer to achieving ultra small radios for
military surveillance use.
PRESENT POSITION: Professor of electrical and
computer engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville
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DEGREES: B.S., M.E., and
Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science, MIT
HOW YOU DESCRIBE YOUR WORK WHEN AT COCKTAIL
PARTIES: I'm trying to build a radio that's really hard to
detect both physically and electronically.
WHAT IS REQUIRED TO BUILD THIS ULTRASMALL RADIO?
We need circuits that work with the on-chip antennas. Our previous
work on wireless clock distribution demonstrated an intra-chip
15-GHz wireless link; and when we proposed this about eight years
ago, people thought we were crazy since others were struggling with
1-GHz CMOS circuits, and the concept of integrating antennas seemed
so difficult. Now, we're working on building a true single-chip
radio working at 24 GHz. In two years, we shall have a fully
functional radio.
WHAT MAKES THEM HARD TO DETECT? The on-chip
antenna makes the system small so that it is difficult to visually
detect. And using spread-spectrum techniques, information is carried
in a bandwidth of frequency; we are trying to spread the information
thin across a large bandwidth so that it can't also be
electronically detected.
HOW FAR CAN THE ANTENNAS DETECT COMMUNICATION?
Up to 5m comfortably, but we're working to increase it to 10-20m.
WHAT APPLICATIONS ARE THE RADIOS USED FOR? By
pairing the radios with sensors, they could be used for military
surveillance or border monitoring, as well as infrastructure
monitoring and disaster recovery. In the medical field, radios could
be mounted on the face of paraplegics to communicate via twitches in
the face.
HAS THIS RESEARCH BEEN DONE BEFORE? There is
work going on at UC Berkeley, called the Smartdust Project (http://rbi.ims.ca/3852-536),
but they've been using light to communicate; we are using radio
frequency (microwave).
