Self Powered Sensors, Graphene Semiconductors and Seeing the World as Animals see it.
February 8
This week we examine a new way to power sensors without the need for batteries or external power supply. We investigate a breakthrough in Graphene Semiconductors and we learn about Internet Protocol version 6 and what might happen over the coming months. Finally we look at the world through the eyes of a range of animals via a new camera that is able to replicate the way animals see the world.
Self Powered Sensors
We have spoken previously about electronic equipment that can self power by harvesting radio waves. A team at MIT have developed a battery free self powered sensor that harvests energy from the magnetic fields in the environment.
The team built a temperature sensing device that harvests energy from the magnetic field in the air that surrounds an electric wire. For example the sensor could be attached to a wire near a ship’s engine and it would be able to automatically gather data on the engine’s power consumption and operations for a long period of time. No need to change batteries ever.
The design framework developed by the team means that the sensors could also be designed to use other sources of power such as vibrations or sunlight. Networks of sensors could be developed for factories, warehouses and commercial spaces that are cheap to install and maintain.
By developing the framework the team hopes that others will build upon their work and develop a range of different sensors that can be used to gather useful information from the environment in a cost effective manner.
The US Navy is looking closely at the framework as it is very difficult to get power to sensors for monitoring systems on a Naval ship. Continually monitoring the vibrations of a pump would give information about the health of bearings and mounts allowing early remedial action. Retrofitting traditional sensors requires too much investment and use of ship infrastructure to make it not worthwhile. This new type of sensor could significantly reduce the ongoing cost of maintenance.
Graphene Semiconductor
A team at Georgia Institute of Technology have created a functional semiconductor from graphene. This may lead to a new way of developing electronics. We are nearing the limits of what physically can be done with silicon. We will need new alternatives to keep Moore’s Law going (Gordon Moore one of the founders of Intel, stated that the number of semiconductors able to be placed on a chip will double every 18 months, that law has held true for over 40 years).
Graphene is a possible alternative to silicon howere there has been a problem facing researchers trying to develop a semiconductor with graphene called the Band Gap. Semiconductors need a difference in the energy between the top of the valance band and the bottom of the conduction band to allow electrons to jump between the two. This is how a semiconductor is able to turn off and on.
The team solved this problem by growing silicon carbide wafers in a special furnace. This produced epitaxial graphene which is a single layer that grows on a crystal face of the silicon carbide. The epitaxial graphene chemically bonded to the silicon carbide and showed semiconducting properties. The team have spent the past decade improving the performance in collaboration with 2 teams from China.
The graphene semiconductor can handle very large currents without heating up and falling apart. The new semiconductor has 10 times the mobility of silicon and brings unique properties not available with silicon. The new semiconductor can be produced with conventional microelectronics processing methods. A new era may be upon us and Moore’s Law may continue for another 40 years.
IPv6
Every computer has an address known as an Internet Protocol address or IP address. This is how websites know how to send you the site that you have requested. This is how advertisers target you with ads (spookily related to things you searched in the last day or so). IP addresses are vital for the operations of the Internet as we know it.
Currently we use IPv4 or Internet Protocol version 4 for addressing all our computers. An IPv4 address looks like 93.184.216.34 (the computer will translate it and you will read it as example.com). There are approximately 4.3 billion addresses available. That means we will run out of possible addresses very shortly.
To avoid running out of addresses, IPv6 is currently being introduced. An IPv6 address looks like 2607:f8b0:4006:819::200e (again this is the IP address for example.com). It functions in the same way that an IPv4 address does however there are 340 undecillion of them (I had to look it up but an undecillion is 10 to the power of 36 or a 1 with 36 zeros after it). It will take us quite some time to run out of these new addresses.
The change however does bring a couple of challenges. Does your ISP support Pv6 addresses as yet (most don’t)? If not they will not be able to send you anything from a server using an IPv6 address. The ISP will need new switches and new software which costs money.
Secondly many developer tools don’t support IPv6 addresses as yet. Developers will have to manually add that support to the toolkits initially. Not a big deal but an issue if errors are made. Most work is still in IPv4 addresses so the errors may not be initially apparent.
From the 1st of February 2024, AWS is charging clients that still use IPv4 addresses. The cost will be around $4 per month for each address. This can be absorbed by the provider or charged to the customer. However for a large infrastructure company the cost will be millions per month. Companies don’t like paying bills they don’t need to pay.
The surest way to make companies to move from one protocol to a newer protocol is to charge for using the old one. There will be a migration and that will cause other parts of the industry (e.g. ISPs) to also update their offering. We will no doubt be hearing more about IPv6 in the coming months.
Nothing for you to do but be aware that if your ISP is not up to date, it is possible you may not be able to access some websites. Popular websites will use a workaround such as using proxy addresses (which will work for a while) but not everyone will.
A Camera that sees the World as Animals see it
Many animals can see ultraviolet and infrared light that us mere humans can not see. Vampire bats and mosquitoes can perceive infrared light, butterflies and some birds can see ultraviolet light. A team from University of Sussex and George Mason University have now developed the required hardware and software for humans to see the world as an animal sees it.
Color, depth and our vision capabilities are determined by the makeup of our photoreceptors and the cones and rods in our eyes. To date we have had to infer how an animal sees the world, how they make decisions on what is food, moving targets and potential mate’s displays. This makes it difficult for us to understand fully animal behavior.
The team built a camera which captures light in wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet. It also records in four color channels (blue, green, red and UV). The software then processes the footage to let us see what the animal sees based upon our knowledge of their eye receptors.
The hardware is designed to be used with commercially available cameras and the software is open source to allow other researchers to adapt it for their specific needs. The systems does have limitations, it can’t capture polarized light and it has a slow frame rate. Fast creatures will be hard to capture.
The team filmed a museum specimen of Phoebis Philea butterfly in avian receptor limited false colors (i.e. how does a bird see a butterfly). The specimen was mounted on a stand and rotated showing us how the bird sees the colors change as the butterfly moves.
You can see the whole video here. Finally how does a peacock, peafowl (and humans), honeybees and a dog see a peacock feather?
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.