The University of Massachusetts Amherst

Braidio - Prolonged Battery Life Through Assymetric Transceivers

LEAD INVENTOR:
, Deepak Ganesan, Ph.D.
 
TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION
Traditionally in data exchange among devices, all devices equally share the energy burden incurred in signal transmission and reception, limiting you to the device with the smallest energy capacity. This invention was developed to address this asymmetric available energy devices encounter, allowing one to shift the energy burden to the highest capacity device, allowing more data to be exchanged before recharging. Braidio is able to dynamically switch the transmission carrier between transmitter and receiver and increases the number of bit exchanges between a transmitter and receiver by more than two orders of magnitude over Bluetooth, particularly in highly asymmetric scenarios. Braidio operates like a standard Bluetooth radio when a device has sufficient energy, but operates like RFID when energy is low, off-loading energy use to a device with a larger battery when needed.

 

This invention can extend battery life of the smaller device hundreds of times in some cases. Braidio capability can enable power-proportional wireless communication wherein two devices with different battery capacities can switch between the different carrier modes, making it practical for a range of mobile devices from laptop to smart watch.

 
ADVANTAGES

• Orders of magnitude longer battery life and thus data transmission capability

Transmitter-receiver power ratios between 1:2546 and 3546:1 can be used, meaning devices with vastly different energy budgets are compatible

Low power, consuming 16uW - 129 mW across the different modes

Small form factor, good for portables

Several of orders of magnitude more bits transmitted compared to Bluetooth

 
APPLICATIONS

• Wireless communication

• IoT

ABOUT THE LEAD INVENTOR
Deepak Ganesan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at UMass Amherst. His research focuses on ultra-low power wireless communication via backscatter, novel platforms and algorithms for mobile and wearable health sensing, learning and inference on multi-modal sensor data, and micro-powered sensors. Dr. Ganesan leads the UMass Sensors Research Group.

AVAILABILITY:
Available for Licensing and/or Sponsored Research
DOCKET:
UMA 16-054
F
PATENT STATUS:
Patent Issued
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Contact:
Helen Ma
Licensing Officer
University of Massachusetts
hma@research.umass.edu
Inventor(s):
Deepak Ganesan
Pan Hu
Keywords: