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Turning Your Home Wiring Into a Giant Antenna
An anonymous reader writes with this IBT snippet: "Imagine if you could run a wireless sensor device for years without ever having to replace the battery. Turns out, the idea of a battery-less wireless device might not be too far off. Researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology developed a small node sized device that uses the residential wiring from a building or home and transmits information to and from almost anywhere else from within. The device is called Sensor Nodes Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure, or SNUPI. It uses basic copper wiring as a giant antenna to receive wireless signals at a set frequency. When the device is within 10 to 15 feet of electrical wiring, it uses the antenna to send data to a single base station." (For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize.")
Just run a wire out back to the railroad line and attack to a rail.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
This is actually a pretty cool idea. It means in any populous area you wouldn't need wireless hubs or cell towers anymore, just the whole city would be humming.
Of course, if there is indeed any higher risk of cancer from radio waves, well... I pity everyone who lives there :)
here is one someone knocked up a 120 years ago.
They already get upset enough about HomePlug style ethernet-over-power devices.
Smart money says that SNUPI is a backronym because they wanted the name to be catchy.
obligatory reference to the patents of tesla describing exactly this around a century ago, especially the whole "set frequency" thing.
IF this is widely adopted, place your bets on how long it takes for snoopers and sniffer to start stealing your sensitive data. I'm guessing a scant week after a city touts a complete success at a city-wide installation a report will come out on how a scammer scams that town out of kajillions.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I'd like to see one of those frenetically sealed batteries. Or maybe just see a video of the battery being sealed.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
I have tried internet over power lines and it never worked for me.
Im sorry, what is a breakfast cereal prize?
FTA: These devices are for "communicating back to the bay station." Think the author knows anything about wireless?
These powerline 'type' technologies are like just bad bad news for Hams and shortwave enthusiasts as it wipes out the bands, unless notch filters are employed, which I doubt it.
Where did TFA get that nonsense from? It certainly does have a battery in it, it doesn't draw power from the mains. It may not need changing for ten years, but "not needing to change the battery often" is hardly the same thing as "batteryless".
I have been working in a DSL company a few years back. For DSL systems, the AM signals could be an issue since they can couple into the long twist pair lines and then, be fed into receiver. So far, I got the idea to utilize the long wires (phone lines, power line, etc) to perform short range radio communications or sensors with other devices. Problems? Many. Overall, it is very hard to control, i.e. taking a lot of noise/interference and emitting a lot of energy (could affect other devices).
^(oo)^pig~
(For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize.")
Don't know about yours, my node is way bigger than this.
What a great idea. The whole building as a huge super-conductive antenna designed and built expressly for the purpose of pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence. Your girlfriend, Pete, lives in the corner penthouse of Spook Central.
Mark my words! Do this, and many Shuvs and Zuuls will know what it is to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
How can this ever be approved? I imagine this can cause all sorts of problems. The power grid in a normal house is not designed for this, same thing goes for the ethernet over power crap. There are all sorts or regulations about keeping net pollution down, and using it as a transmission medium goes directly against this.
For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize."?
For those of us that haven't eaten cereal that comes with prizes for at least 40 years now, can you express that in more traditional units, e.g. volkswagens, libraries of congress, or common US coins? Alternatively, you you just give the fucking dimensions.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'm confused. Can you please tell me how many sheets of glass that is?
Another bit of brilliance:
WTF? What the holy hell does that even mean? And other unanswered questions: what on earth is this useful for? What kind of sensors do they intend to attach to this, and what is intended to be done with the data gathered? And: "a node-sized" device? Ok, so how big is a node?
Hint for the International Business Times: for your next story, try assigning a reporter who has some kind of a fucking clue what's being talked about. And for Slashdot: try reading submitted articles before you push them to the front page, in order to avoid embarrassing yourself.
I know, must be new here.
Are you homophonic or something?
Remember those scam ads for using your house wiring for a giant Television antenna? I remember seeing those ads in Popular Mechanics and possibly Popular Electronics magazines.
SNUPI will never last. It'll only be a matter of time until RDBARRN technology comes along to shoot it down.
Sounds like they are using the frequencies reserved in the US for R/C control, which require no license. Also, since they are using the power lines as a receiver, not a transmitter, HAM enthusiasts shouldn't have a problem with it. For the very limited niche it is designed for (home data collection), it's a cool system.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize."
Is that a European or African cereal prize?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
When I was 11 I got a Heathkit Crystal set kit for my birthday, it came with a variable capacitor a diode a small Bakelite knob a phenolic tube a spool of enameled magnet wire a square of plywood, solder, screws, a little piece of sandpaper a pair of fanstock clips with a monophone headset. I had to buy a soldering iron. Let me tell you I was thrilled, and I even entered it into the science fair.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
In the UW paper, there was no detailed description of the powerline inside the test home. What was the wiring? I'm guessing it was NM cable (a.k.a. "Romex"), or wire in nonmetallic conduit. If a home is wired with wire in metal conduit or armored cable (f.k.a."BX"), the grounded metal enclosure probably has an adverse effect on performance of the SNUPI system.
Neat - I wasn't lucky enough to get a crystal set but did get various other kits. I knocked up a two-way radio with a mate once. I feel sorry for youngsters these days, they just get iPods. Perhaps Jobs should think of an iCrystal kit.
I had a crystal radio kit as a kid, too. I don't remember if it was a Heathkit or not (although I remember my dad building several Heathkit projects), but it was still a very cool project. I do remember being disappointed it wasn't louder, though, lol.
:)
Now that you've stirred up the memories, I want to build another crystal radio
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I recall stories of products that served to make an antenna out of the electrical wiring of your house or even the chicken-coop wiring in the backing of old stucco-surfaced walls. they functioned as advertised, but seeing as neither was designed for the purpose, they're both woefully unprepared for the accidental circumstance of a larger EMF pulse. recieving a signal incurs resistance, resistance heat. too much signal can suddenly cause your house to explode into flame.
PS AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHH entering this comment was a exercise in frustration, what the FUCK kind of script is preventing me from typing, hilighting, or rightclicking in the edit pane randomly and for 30 seconds at a time?!?!?!?
When I was in college, kids in the university's then-tallest building would not bother getting cable service, which the dorm was pre-wired for. But despite not having cable service, they plugged their TV's into the cable jacks anyway -- and it increased their OTA reception fourfold. The cable wires running through the building served as a huge 100-foot antenna.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Paper here: http://sockeye.cs.washington.edu/research/pubs/Cohn_SNUPI_ubicomp10.pdf
At the end, the authors are grasping at straws to describe potential applications.
I don't think anyone cares about "ubiquitous computing" hidden in a crawl space or behind a wall, come on. That's not really an application.
There is no point in embedding this into anything which is plugged into an outlet, because then you can use direct power-line networking; there is no need for a wireless hop to the power line! And you have AC power, so the battery life saving is moot.
The authors neglect to address the obvious objection: that non-mobile devices, such as those installed in a wall or crawl space, do not have to be wireless!!! You can just run a section of cable to them. There is already wiring in walls; just tap into it! If you're going to go through the trouble of cutting through a wall to install something, surely you can do wiring.
The medical uses are the most promising, like glucose monitoring and whatnot. But unless these devices are surgically implanted in the body, who really cares about their battery life? There are rechargeable batteries. The one good thing would be that the tinfoil hat crowd would approve of the use of less transmitter power and lower frequencies, especially near the human body. This would be the way to sell this technology: it is "safer".
There is no point in using this in any battery-powered device which itself has a significant current drain, such that the additional drain from wireless transmission is negligible. (Suppose 10% of the overall power consumption is spent on transmitting; a ten fold improvement in that will cut only 9% of the overall power consumption). So for instance, using this in a laptop computer is useless.
Also, there is another limitation: currently, the SNUPI devices can only transmit and not receive.
Bandwidth could be a problem; these things use a low-frequency. Forget about 802.11{g,n}.
This is just someone's school project that is unlikely to result in a product, but you never know. The perception of a reduced health hazard due to lower emissions could be a big selling point.
The benefit this project brags about is how the wireless nodes will consume so little power that the builtin batteries will deliver power longer than their 10 year shelf life. That's not really "eliminating batteries" as they claim, because actually eliminating batteries would mean the sensors would have an indefinitely long life, not one limited by the shelf life of the batteries.
But since the nodes are using the building electrical power network for transmissions, why not just plug them directly into the power wires? That would indeed truly eliminate the battery entirely, except maybe a rechargeable for backup. And if plugged in, why bother with wireless at all?
--
make install -not war
A trivial upgrade, assuming you have the right building materials. Just use some cold-riveted beams with cores of pure selenium, magnesium-tungsten alloys, and gold plated bolts, and it'll be working in no time.
Imagine if you could run a wireless sensor device for years without ever having to replace the battery. ... a small node sized device that uses the residential wiring from a building or home ...
So, if we're already surrounded by a dedicated hard-wired power delivery infrastructure, we don't need batteries if we use this thing.
Or you could just plug the damn thing in.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The real issue here is the law. A wireless transmitter needs to be approved by the FCC. If the device specs aren't known (or change randomly from house to house or building to building), the device can't be legally approved since its radiation limits are unknown or non-standard.
You had a DIODE!? Shit, I only had a galena crystal and a catwhisker. Lucky me, I had a cypress tree house about fifty feet off the ground, and ran a wire down to the swamp below. We were less than a mile from a big AM transmitter in Jax, FL, and you could listen to the earphones like speakers! But my science fair project lasted one operation. It was a Van der Graaf tower generator running a huge rubber band off a phonograph motor, on a plastic tube about three feet long with an aluminum pot on top. Went off like a rifle shot when it arced over, freaked out the science teachers. http://amasci.com/emotor/vdg.html
The Xtal Set Society: http://www.midnightscience.com/
Will this improve my UHF and VHF HDTV-ATSC reception? If not, it is worthless.
Cool -- thanks for the link!
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?