The IoT library: Wireless sensor networks tuned for big data collection
Wireless sensors are hot; especially low power, three-axis accelerometers and high-performance gyroscopes — the kind found in drones and mobile camera modules, smartphones, mobile communication and gaming device, augmented reality systems, virtual reality, image stabilization, and industrial measurement applications.
Sensors can perform tiny, discrete sensing and measurement functions or they can be networked together to create an intelligent, big data approach to things like dynamic motion analysis. We saw a working example of this during the recent Superbowl broadcast.
Using an array of ultra-low power, quarter-sized motion sensors embedded in Bronco and Panther shoulder pads, the NFL created a sensor-based system to assist game commentators called “Next Gen Stats.” The embedded sensors enable real-time monitoring and measurement of a broad range of player motions, including running speed, or the ‘closing distance’ between a receiver and defender. The system gives announcers in the glass broadcast booth a unique perspective on what’s happening on the field, with stats that enhance their play-by-play call of the game.
The NFL’s embedded motion sensors are part of a league and game-wide network. They communicate with a central system via a radio-frequency (RFID) system put in place by Zebra Technologies. It was the second full season that the NFL used Zebra’s tech to glean the kind of insights that cater to stat-heads and fantasy-football obsessives. The shoulder pad motion sensors emit a signal beacon to other sensors around the stadium, which triangulate the signal to pinpoint the location of a player within a 6-inch accuracy. The sensors send out those beacons many times per second, where they are processed by the motion sensing stats system. Zebra has applied the same system-level approach to generating big data from sensor-based systems to other sectors, including healthcare, retail, manufacturing, transportation logistics and other industries.
Semiconductor component manufacturers are carefully tracking these mobile system design trends, especially the need to integrate low-power sensors into next generation wireless network infrastructure.
This same integration rationale was behind Japan’s Sony Corp. purchase last month of the Israeli chip maker, Altair Semiconductors. Sony has plans to integrate Altair’s 4G LTE wireless technology into the Sony portfolio of image, motion, and sensing components. In disclosing the acquisition, Sony said it plans to deliver components that feature both sensing and communication capabilities, as well as new LTE solutions.
Specifically, Sony said it will move forward with research and development of new systems that combine Sony’s and image sensors to develop “a new breed of cellular-connected, sensing component devices.” The plan involves combining technologies such as GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) and image sensors — with Altair’s high-performance, low power consumption, and cost-competitive modem chip technology, and by further evolving both techniques.
Engineers looking for a flexible IoT sensor reference platform that integrates the essential design elements of data acquisition, power management, and wireless communication should check out TI’s Solar Dice, a battery-less, wirelessly-transmitting device with a broad range of sensor applications for Internet of Things systems.
Solar Dice, which can also harvest energy from motion, are a kind of primary building block for mobile, low-power sensor system configuration. Each node is a batteryless, wireless transmitting device featuring an onboard accelerometer that detects the orientation of the Dice and wirelessly transmits this to a host, such as a USB dongle or smartphone. The Solar Dice are an example of an unlimited number of different sensor types (temperature, humidity, pressure, etc.) enabled by the reference design and ideally suited to system prototyping.
