A Tale from Our Wireless Future

Thank heavens it’s Friday. Bob steps in the shower. The water comes on at the perfect temperature. After showering and dressing he straps on a cell phone that looks like a large wristwatch with an LCD touch-screen instead of a watch face. Bob uses it to tell his hot water tank to shut down for the weekend. He won’t be needing it.

His refrigerator calls to say his milk is out of date. As he reaches the kitchen and his waiting coffee, his air conditioner calls saying it will shut down in 5 min. if he doesn’t quit procrastinating and change its filter. Bob rushes to do so--now he’s behind.

He asks his cell phone to estimate his time of arrival at the office. The phone calls various traffic control systems. It doesn’t look good: Bob will be 14 minutes late. He thanks his phone for telling him his blood pressure is elevated. It’s the least of his worries. Even if he passed out the phone would call for help.

As he pulls on the freeway, the computer in Bob's car connects itself to the freeway's wireless network. Bob calls his office about his big meeting. His phone knows his location and remembers previous reception problems, as well as sensing new ones. It continually adjusts its signal for best results. If it can’t find a nearby cell phone tower, Bob’s phone will relay its signals through cars on the road, other cell phones, or possibly even someone’s refrigerator. If normal frequencies are overloaded, Bob’s phone will find a location on the EM spectrum that isn’t, all without interrupting Bob’s conversation.

Phoning while driving—once risky—is now safe. The car has collision sensors and is wirelessly receiving data from sensors in the cars ahead. A central system adjusts speed limits as high as possible for safe driving and sends the data to cars on the road. Bob is driving and can override his car's automated systems, but in a moment of inattention they'll keep him safe.

If the above sounds incredible, then consider that most of the required technology is either here or on its way. With computer power doubling every 18 months, not to mention networking and information storage capabilities doubling even faster, wireless communication devices are going to become even more SPIFI (Small, Powerful, Interconnected, Flexible, Intelligent).

Networked Appliances: Cars and appliances like refrigerators will not just come with computers but with wireless networking. Products will be marked with RFID tags making it possible to ring up a cartload of them and charge the total to your bank account merely by rolling the cart between sensors on the way to the parking lot. By scanning these tags, your refrigerator could just as easily track its contents.

Software Defined Radio: Radios used to be built entirely from individual electronic components. In the future, any device with a decent computer could be a software defined radio and receive or transmit on a variety of frequencies adjusted by its software. Cell phones, TVs, gaming systems, stereos, DVD players, and internet access could all be combined in a single device.

Smart Dust exemplifies the future’s SPIFI wireless devices. Researchers expect to eventually include a computer, operating system, wireless system, battery and set of sensors in a device the size of a grain of rice costing, at most, a few dollars. Sprinkle a few hundred in the path of an oncoming tornado, they’d configure an ad hoc network and transmit vital research data to a base station as they swirled around in the twister. The possible applications for such technology are as limitless as the imagination.

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