The 91探花 and Amazon today announced the , an effort that deepens the relationship between the two organizations and will advance innovation in core robotics, artificial intelligence technologies and their applications.

Amazon鈥檚 initial investment of $1.9 million will support a broad set of programs, including fellowships for doctoral students, collaboration among researchers and support for collaborative research events. The hub鈥檚 initial focus will accelerate AI, robotics and engineering in the Seattle area while embracing neighboring academic institutions and the public through events.

鈥淲e are excited to collaborate with Amazon to advance research and learning in the College of Engineering and beyond,鈥� said 91探花President Ana Mari Cauce. 鈥淭he incredible potential for world-changing discovery across disciplines and sectors represents the best of what is possible when academia and industry join forces to accelerate innovation here in the Pacific Northwest, home to both our organizations.鈥�

Housed in the College of Engineering, the hub is expected to expand its focus over time and tackle additional challenges at the intersection of technology, industry and society.

鈥淪olving the hardest challenges in science and engineering requires collaboration between bright minds in industry and academia,鈥� said , senior vice president of Customer Fulfillment at Amazon. 鈥淭his hub deepens our engagement with a research powerhouse sitting in our backyard, empowering Amazon scientists and 91探花researchers to work together to both address those challenges and contribute to the scientific community via open research.鈥�

The hub fosters a new generation of researchers to tackle complex problems, identified by Amazon and addressed through the UW鈥檚 robotics labs.

鈥淭hese kinds of real-world challenges and problems are increasingly a scarce strategic resource for researchers in robotics and AI,鈥� said hub inaugural director , who is a professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and is the Milton and Delia Zeutschel Professor in Entrepreneurial Excellence in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. 鈥淭he hub will allow our students and faculty to advance the state of the art in some of the most challenging open research problems in robotics and AI. And that鈥檚 just the start of the mission.鈥�

鈥淭he research hub aligns with our strategic vision to advance engineering excellence for the public good. We鈥檙e thrilled to further deepen our relationship with Amazon and to leverage our research strengths to address these types of challenges and develop solutions that will benefit all,鈥� said , Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering.

, an Amazon Robotics AI principal scientist who will serve as the 91探花research liaison, said the hub will launch with an initial focus on robotics as a collaboration between Amazon Robotics AI and the College of Engineering.

鈥淎ddressing challenges in autonomy, computer vision and machine learning is important to both Amazon and the robotics community at large,鈥� Wolf said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e already built great momentum in defining flagship programs in robotic manipulation and 3D perception at UW, and we look forward to expanding our engagement with 91探花and building a joint community of researchers here in Seattle.鈥�

Amazon and the 91探花have worked closely since the 1990s, leveraging their proximity to one another. Amazon has provided learning opportunities for students through project funds and fellowships, support for faculty through professorships and research funding and new spaces for learning and collaboration through capital support. Thousands of 91探花alumni work at Amazon, many serving in executive-leadership positions. Dozens of Amazon professionals have served in volunteer roles at the 91探花over the years, as advisors on 91探花boards and committees.

Many 91探花professors also are , a program designed for academics from universities around the globe who want to apply research methods in practice and help the company solve technical challenges without leaving their academic institutions.

鈥淎s someone with deep ties to both organizations, I am delighted the hub will both seed new ideas and deepen the connections between our researchers,鈥� said , director of Robotics AI at Amazon and holder of the Boeing Endowed Professorship at the Allen School. 鈥淢y 91探花colleagues excel at tackling complex and interdisciplinary problems, and the scale of Amazon鈥檚 fulfillment network provides a rich set of problems in AI and robotics. This collaboration will catalyze invention and exploration by bridging our diversity of perspectives and approaches to problem solving.鈥�

For more information, contact Smith at jrs@cs.washington.edu.

Several honors, grant awards in 2020 for Nadya Peek of HCDE

, 91探花assistant professor of human centered design and engineering, received an honor in 2020 as well as several research grants. MIT Review in June named her to its annual list of , celebrating those whose work “has the greatest potential to transform the world.”

Peek leads the UW’s , a research group that uses machine precision to assist human creativity, and co-directs the .

In recent months, Peek received a from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study testing and verification of quality control strategies for manufactured products responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. She and a University of California colleague also were awarded a two-year National Science Foundation to research digital manufacturing tools for low-volume manufacturing.

Peek is a co-principal investigator on a $2 million, three-year grant from the NSF’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Program, announced in October, to develop distributed chemical manufacturing using synthetic biology. 91探花chemical engineering professor is the project lead, along with 91探花chemistry assistant professor and chemical engineering associate professor .

Also, Peek and , professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, will share a three-year NSF to develop open source, customizable “co-bots,” or collaborative robots designed to work alongside humans in scientific work as well as other fields such as advanced fabrication and quality control.

Read more at Peeks’ page on the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering .

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Miranda Belarde-Lewis a new iSchool endowed faculty fellow

, assistant professor in the 91探花Information School, has been named the inaugural .

Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is an independent curator as well as a professor of North American Indigenous Knowledge with the iSchool, and her work examines the role of social media in protecting, perpetuating and documenting Native American information and knowledge.

The award comes with funds Belarde-Lewis can use to apply for grants, bring speakers to campus and the community, or help with her research.

is the former longtime director of the UW’s Odegaard Undergraduate Library and was the iSchool’s Distinguished Alumna for 2020.

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American Political Science Association honors Aseem Prakash

, 91探花professor of political science, has received the 2020 from the American Political Science Association’s Science, Technology and Environmental Politics division.

(1933-2012) was a well-known American political scientist, who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Prakash, who knew Ostrom and her husband well, is the Walker Family Professor for the Arts and Sciences and directs the UW-based . The award was announced in the summer.

One challenge to life in space is power: how to keep humans cozy and robots working when there are no built-in power outlets and when solar power is not always an option.

Now a team of organizations 鈥� led by the space technology company Astrobotic and including the 91探花 and the 91探花spinout 鈥� has received a $5.8 million contract to develop a line of lightweight, ultrafast wireless chargers that could help both humans and robots live and work on the moon. This contract is part of the call for proposals.

Though prototypes for wireless charging have existed since 2011, this new magnetic resonance-based power supply system would be the first of its kind in space.

Wireless charging in space comes with its own set of issues, such as how to keep the metallic iron in 鈥� or lunar regolith 鈥� from interfering with charging connections. The 91探花has received $440,000 from this contract to study how lunar regolith affects wireless power transfer.

“Moon dust is very fine and tends to stick to surfaces because it gets electrically charged. The 91探花team is tackling the fundamental research question of how dust particle size and composition affects power transfer efficiency,” said 91探花lead researcher , a professor in both the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. “We plan to take an approach that is a hybrid of science and engineering: We will develop a synthetic moon dust that is consistent with known relevant properties, but that represents the worst case for our wireless power transfer system.

“Our work will be the basis of the engineering requirements for the rest of the team. It will help us answer questions such as: how much extra power should be transferred to overcome the expected losses to heat? Or how much cooling capacity needs to be built into the system to get rid of that heat produced in the moon dust?”

础蝉迟谤辞产辞迟颈肠鈥檚 , which was developed in collaboration with the NASA Kennedy Space Center, is the first space technology that will be integrated with the wireless charging system. Part of NASA鈥檚 Tipping Point contract will fund development of CubeRover鈥檚 intelligent autonomous navigation system, which will enable precise navigation where GPS is not an option. This will equip the CubeRover 鈥� and other planetary roving technologies 鈥� to find charging docks to power up again and again, and survive the 14-day lunar night.

Astrobotic will space-qualify the entire system, test engineering and flight models, and lead integration of CubeRover and the multi-kilowatt, ultrafast wireless charging system, designed by WiBotic. WiBotic will also provide engineering, mechanical and electrical design support.

鈥淭hese rovers need easy and reliable access to power in an environment that includes extremely abrasive dust and severe temperatures, making this a perfect application for WiBotic鈥檚 innovative non-contact proximity charging solutions,鈥� says , CEO of WiBotic. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking forward to working with Astrobotic and the team to deliver flexible and durable charging stations that provide power to a range of manned and unmanned lunar vehicles.鈥�

This wireless charging technology could have considerable utility not only on the moon, but also in critical space applications on Mars, in orbit and beyond. Future teams will be able to scale the wireless technology to diverse assets like lunar vehicles, power tools, flying systems and more. The base station, power receiver and CubeRover flight units will be delivered to NASA for inclusion into an upcoming lunar mission via the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program in 2023.

Adapted from a by Astrobotic.

Dr. Douglas Paauw honored for teaching by American College of Physicians 听

, 91探花professor of general internal medicine in the School of Medicine and director of the 91探花Medical Student Program, has been awarded the by the , a national organization of internists.

The award, established in 1969 and renamed for its first woman , is given annually to a fellow or of the college “who has demonstrated the ennobling qualities of a great teacher.” Paauw was a master of the college in 2009.

He joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1988 and is a physician at the 91探花Medical Center’s general internal medicine and virology clinics. Paauw also received distinguished teaching awards from the 91探花in 1997 and from its School of Medicine four times. He is the UW’s Rathmann Family Foundation Endowed Chair in Patient Centered Clinical Education.

Paauw will receive the award at the college’s annual convocation ceremony in April 2020 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

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Dr. Joel Kaufman named new editor-in-chief of environmental health journal

, 91探花professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, medicine and epidemiology, has been named the new editor-in-chief of the journal .

The journal is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health and Sciences, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Kaufman is a practicing physician who has published more than 200 research papers and review articles on environmental science. Since joining the 91探花faculty more than two decades ago, he has maintained a research program that encompasses epidemiology, inhalation toxicology, clinical medicine and exposure sciences. He previously served as interim dean for the School of Public Health.

Day-to-day operations for the journal will be carried out by full-time staff under Kaufman鈥檚 direction. The journal now enables its editor-in-chief to continue conducting research and teaching at their home institution.听

Kaufman has served on editorial boards and peer review panels for many of the leading clinical medicine and environmental health journals. He previously served on the editorial review board, then as an associate editor, of Environmental Health Perspectives before taking over as interim dean of the School of Public Health in 2016. .

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Allen School faculty members honored by Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 听

The , or ACM, has professors and of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering as among 58 new , honored for their “far-reaching accomplishments that define the digital age.”

Also, the , or IEEE, has named Allen School professor as among its Smith also has an appointment with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

These announcements bring to 24 the number of current or former Allen School faculty members made an ACM Fellows, and 16 who have been named IEEE Fellows.

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Sam Luboga of Department of Family Medicine to lead Ugandan education commission

, a 91探花clinical associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine has been named to lead the of The Republic of Uganda. Luboga is also an associate professor of health sciences at , in Kampala, Uganda. The appointment calls for Luboga to lead the nation’s civil service teacher’s personnel board, responsible for ensuring the high caliber of Uganda’s teaching workforce.

“I will make sure that the reputation of the Education Service Commission remains high and grows more,” Luboga said in an about his appointment.

Wearable cameras such as Snap Spectacles promise to share videos of live concerts or surgeries instantaneously with the world. But because these cameras must use smaller batteries to stay lightweight and functional, these devices can鈥檛 perform high-definition video streaming.

Now, engineers at the 91探花 have developed a new HD video streaming method that doesn鈥檛 need to be plugged in. Their prototype skips the power-hungry parts and has something else, like a smartphone, process the video instead.

They do this using a technique called backscatter, through which a device can share information by reflecting signals that have been transmitted to it.

鈥淭he fundamental assumption people have made so far is that backscatter can be used only for low-data rate sensors such as temperature sensors,鈥� said co-author , an associate professor in the UW鈥檚 Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. 鈥淭his work breaks that assumption and shows that backscatter can indeed support even full HD video.鈥�

The team April 10 at the Advanced Computing Systems Association鈥檚 .

In today鈥檚 streaming cameras, the camera first processes and compresses the video before it is transmitted via Wi-Fi. These processing and communication components eat a lot of power, especially with HD videos. As a result, a lightweight streaming camera that doesn鈥檛 need large batteries or a power source has been out of reach.

The 91探花team developed a new system that eliminates all of these components. Instead, the pixels in the camera are directly connected to the antenna, and it sends intensity values via backscatter to a nearby smartphone. The phone, which doesn鈥檛 have the same size and weight restrictions as a small streaming camera, can process the video instead.

For the video transmission, the system translates the pixel information from each frame into a series of pulses where the width of each pulse represents a pixel value. The time duration of the pulse is proportional to the brightness of the pixel.

鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of similar to how the cells in the brain communicate with each other,鈥� said co-author , a professor in the Allen School and the 91探花Department of Electrical Engineering. 鈥淣eurons are either signaling or they鈥檙e not, so the information is encoded in the timing of their action potentials.鈥�

The team tested their idea using a prototype that converted HD YouTube videos into raw pixel data. Then they fed the pixels into their backscatter system. Their design could stream 720p HD videos at 10 frames per second to a device up to 14 feet away.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 like a camera recording a scene and sending the video to a device in the next room,鈥� said co-author and computer science and engineering doctoral student听.

The group鈥檚 system uses 1,000 to 10,000 times less power than current streaming technology. But it still has a small battery that supports continuous operation. The next step is to make wireless video cameras that are completely battery-free, said Smith, who is the .

The team has also created a low-resolution, low-power security camera, which can stream at 13 frames per second. This falls in line with the range of functions the group predicts for this technology.

鈥淭here are many applications,鈥� said co-author and recent 91探花electrical engineering alum . 鈥淩ight now home security cameras have to be plugged in all the time. But with our technology, we can effectively cut the cord for wireless streaming cameras.鈥�

The group also envisions a world where these cameras are smart enough to only turn on when they are needed for their specific purpose, which could save even more energy.

Gollakota is excited the 91探花research team is at the forefront of the low-power video-streaming field and its impact on the industry.

鈥淭his video technology has the potential to transform the industry as we know it. Cameras are critical for a number of internet-connected applications, but so far they have been constrained by their power consumption,鈥� he said.

鈥淛ust imagine you go to a football game five years from now,” Smith added. “There could be tiny HD cameras everywhere recording the action: stuck on players鈥� helmets, everywhere across the stadium. And you don鈥檛 have to ever worry about changing their batteries.鈥�

This technology has been licensed to , a Seattle-based startup founded by a team of 91探花researchers, including Gollakota, Smith and Vamsi Talla, a recent 91探花alum and co-author on this paper.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Google Faculty Research Awards.

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For more information, contact the research team at听batteryfreevideo@cs.washington.edu.

91探花 researchers have demonstrated for the first time that devices that run on almost zero power can transmit data across distances of up to 2.8 kilometers 鈥� breaking a long-held barrier and potentially enabling a vast array of interconnected devices.

For example, flexible electronics 鈥� from knee patches that capture range of motion in arthritic patients to patches that use sweat to detect fatigue in athletes or soldiers 鈥� hold great promise for collecting medically relevant data.

But today鈥檚 flexible electronics and other sensors that can鈥檛 employ bulky batteries and need to operate with very low power typically can鈥檛 communicate with other devices more than a few feet or meters away. This limits their practical use in applications ranging from medical monitoring and home sensing to smart cities and precision agriculture.

By contrast, the UW鈥檚 , which uses reflected radio signals to transmit data at extremely low power and low cost, achieved reliable coverage throughout 4800-square-foot house, an office area covering 41 rooms and a one-acre vegetable farm. The system is detailed in a to be presented Sept. 13 at .

鈥淯ntil now, devices that can communicate over long distances have consumed a lot of power. The tradeoff in a low-power device that consumes microwatts of power is that its communication range is short,鈥� said , lead faculty and associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. 鈥淣ow we鈥檝e shown that we can offer both, which will be pretty game-changing for a lot of different industries and applications.鈥�

The team鈥檚 latest long-range backscatter system provides reliable long-range communication with sensors that consume 1000 times less power than existing technologies capable of transmitting data over similar distances. It鈥檚 an important and necessary breakthrough toward embedding connectivity into billions of everyday objects.

The long-range backscatter system will be commercialized by , a spin-out company founded by the 91探花team of computer scientists and electrical engineers, which expects to begin selling it within six months.

The sensors are so cheap 鈥� with an expected bulk cost of 10 to 20 cents each 鈥� that farmers looking to measure soil temperature or moisture could affordably blanket an entire field to determine how to efficiently plant seeds or water. Other potential applications range from sensor arrays that could monitor pollution, noise or traffic in 鈥渟mart鈥� cities or medical devices that could wirelessly transmit information about a heart patient鈥檚 condition around the clock.

鈥淧eople have been talking about embedding connectivity into everyday objects such as laundry detergent, paper towels and coffee cups for years, but the problem is the cost and power consumption to achieve this,鈥� said , CTO of Jeeva Wireless, who was an Allen School postdoctoral researcher and received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the UW. 鈥淭his is the first wireless system that can inject connectivity into any device with very minimal cost.鈥�

The research team, for instance, built a contact lens prototype and a flexible epidermal patch that attaches to human skin, which successfully used long-range backscatter to transmit information across a 3300-square-foot atrium. That鈥檚 orders of magnitude larger than the 3-foot range achieved by prior smart contact lens designs.

The system has three components: a source that emits a radio signal, sensors that encode information in reflections of that signal and an inexpensive off-the-shelf receiver that decodes the information. When the sensor is placed between the source and receiver, the system can transmit data at distances up to 475 meters. When the sensor is placed next to the signal source, the receiver can decode information from as far as 2.8 kilometers away.

The advantage to using reflected, or 鈥渂ackscattered,鈥� radio signals to convey information is a sensor can run on extremely low power that can be provided by thin cheap flexible printed batteries or can be harvested from ambient sources 鈥� eliminating the need for bulky batteries. The disadvantage is that it鈥檚 difficult for a receiver to distinguish these extremely weak reflections from the original signal and other noise.

鈥淚t鈥檚 like trying to listen to a conversation happening on the other side of a thick wall 鈥� you might hear some faint voices but you can鈥檛 quite make out the words,鈥� said , an Allen School doctoral student. 鈥淲ith our new technology we can essentially decode those words even when the conversation itself is hard to hear.鈥�

To overcome the problem, the 91探花team introduced a new type of modulation 鈥� called 鈥� into its backscatter design. Spreading the reflected signals across multiple frequencies allowed the team to achieve much greater sensitivities and decode backscattered signals across greater distances even when it鈥檚 below the noise.

鈥淲e basically started with a clean slate and said if what we really need to enable smart applications is long-range communication, how could we design the system from the ground up to achieve that goal?鈥� said , a co-founder at Jeeva Wireless who was a 91探花electrical engineering student.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Co-authors include , professor in the Allen School and the 91探花Department of Electrical Engineering, and 91探花electrical engineering doctoral student .

For more information, contact the research team at longrange@cs.washington.edu.

91探花 researchers have invented a 鈥� a major leap forward in moving beyond chargers, cords and dying phones. Instead, the phone harvests the few microwatts of power it requires from either ambient radio signals or light.

The team also made Skype calls using its battery-free phone, demonstrating that the prototype made of commercial, off-the-shelf components can receive and transmit speech and communicate with a base station.

The new technology is detailed in a published July 1 in the

鈥淲e鈥檝e built what we believe is the first functioning cellphone that consumes almost zero power,鈥� said co-author , an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the UW. 鈥淭o achieve the really, really low power consumption that you need to run a phone by harvesting energy from the environment, we had to fundamentally rethink how these devices are designed.鈥�

The team of 91探花computer scientists and electrical engineers eliminated a power-hungry step in most modern cellular transmissions 鈥� converting analog signals that convey sound into digital data that a phone can understand. This process consumes so much energy that it鈥檚 been impossible to design a phone that can rely on ambient power sources.

Instead, the battery-free cellphone takes advantage of tiny vibrations in a phone鈥檚 microphone or speaker that occur when a person is talking into a phone or listening to a call.

An antenna connected to those components converts that motion into changes in standard analog radio signal emitted by a cellular base station. This process essentially encodes speech patterns in reflected radio signals in a way that uses almost no power.

To transmit speech, the phone uses vibrations from the device鈥檚 microphone to encode speech patterns in the reflected signals. To receive speech, it converts encoded radio signals into sound vibrations that that are picked up by the phone鈥檚 speaker. In the prototype device, the user presses a button to switch between these two 鈥渢ransmitting鈥� and 鈥渓istening鈥� modes.

Using off-the-shelf components on a printed circuit board, the team demonstrated that the prototype can perform basic phone functions 鈥� transmitting speech and data and receiving user input via buttons. Using Skype, researchers were able to receive incoming calls, dial out and place callers on hold with the battery-free phone.

鈥淭he cellphone is the device we depend on most today.听 So if there were one device you鈥檇 want to be able to use without batteries, it is the cellphone,鈥� said faculty lead , professor in both the Allen School and UW鈥檚 Department of Electrical Engineering. 鈥淭he proof of concept we鈥檝e developed is exciting today, and we think it could impact everyday devices in the future.鈥�

The team designed a custom base station to transmit and receive the radio signals. But that technology conceivably could be integrated into standard cellular network infrastructure or Wi-Fi routers now commonly used to make calls.

鈥淵ou could imagine in the future that all cell towers or Wi-Fi routers could come with our base station technology embedded in it,鈥� said co-author , a former 91探花electrical engineering doctoral student and Allen School research associate. 鈥淎nd if every house has a Wi-Fi router in it, you could get battery-free cellphone coverage everywhere.鈥�

The battery-free phone does still require a small amount of energy to perform some operations. The prototype has a power budget of 3.5 microwatts.

The 91探花researchers demonstrated how to harvest this small amount of energy from two different sources. The battery-free phone prototype can operate on power gathered from ambient radio signals transmitted by a base station up to 31 feet away.

Using power harvested from ambient light with a tiny solar cell 鈥� roughly the size of a grain of rice 鈥� the device was able to communicate with a base station that was 50 feet away.

Many other battery-free technologies that rely on ambient energy sources, such as temperature sensors or an accelerometer, conserve power with intermittent operations. They take a reading and then 鈥渟leep鈥� for a minute or two while they harvest enough energy to perform the next task. By contrast, a phone call requires the device to operate continuously for as long as the conversation lasts.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 say hello and wait for a minute for the phone to go to sleep and harvest enough power to keep transmitting,鈥� said co-author , a 91探花electrical engineering doctoral student. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 been the biggest challenge 鈥� the amount of power you can actually gather from ambient radio or light is on the order of 1 or 10 microwatts. So real-time phone operations have been really hard to achieve without developing an entirely new approach to transmitting and receiving speech.鈥�

Next, the research team plans to focus on improving the battery-free phone鈥檚 operating range and encrypting conversations to make them secure. The team is also working to stream video over a battery-free cellphone and add a visual display feature to the phone using low-power E-ink screens.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and Google Faculty Research Awards.

For more information, visit or contact the research team at batteryfreephone@cs.washington.edu.

Imagine you鈥檙e waiting in your car and a poster for a concert from a local band catches your eye. What if you could just tune your car to a radio station and actually listen to that band鈥檚 music? Or perhaps you see the poster on the side of a bus stop. What if it could send your smartphone a link for discounted tickets or give you directions to the venue?

Going further, imagine you go for a run, and your shirt can sense your perspiration and send data on your vital signs directly to your phone.

A pioneered by 91探花 engineers makes these 鈥渟mart鈥� posters and clothing a reality by allowing them to communicate directly with your car鈥檚 radio or your smartphone. For instance, bus stop billboards could send digital content about local attractions. A street sign could broadcast the name of an intersection or notice that it is safe to cross a street, improving accessibility for the disabled. In addition, clothing with integrated sensors could monitor vital signs and send them to a phone.

鈥淲hat we want to do is enable smart cities and fabrics where everyday objects in outdoor environments 鈥� whether it鈥檚 posters or street signs or even the shirt you鈥檙e wearing 鈥� can 鈥榯alk鈥� to you by sending information to your phone or car,鈥� said lead faculty and 91探花assistant professor of computer science and engineering .

鈥淭he challenge is that radio technologies like WiFi, Bluetooth and conventional FM radios would last less than half a day with a coin cell battery when transmitting,” said co-author and 91探花electrical engineering doctoral student . “So we developed a new way of communication where we send information by reflecting ambient FM radio signals that are already in the air, which consumes close to zero power.鈥�

The 91探花team has 鈥� for the first time 鈥� demonstrated how to apply a technique called 鈥渂ackscattering鈥� to outdoor FM radio signals. The new system transmits messages by reflecting and encoding audio and data in these signals that are ubiquitous in urban environments, without affecting the original radio transmissions. Results are published in a to be presented in Boston at the 14th in March.

The team demonstrated that a 鈥渟inging poster鈥� for the band placed at a bus stop could transmit a snippet of the band鈥檚 music, as well as an advertisement for the band, to a smartphone at a distance of 12 feet or to a car over 60 feet away. They overlaid the audio and data on top of ambient news signals from a local NPR radio station.

鈥淔M radio signals are everywhere. You can listen to music or news in your car and it鈥檚 a common way for us to get our information,鈥� said co-author and 91探花computer science and engineering doctoral student . 鈥淪o what we do is basically make each of these everyday objects into a mini FM radio station at almost zero power.鈥�

Such ubiquitous low-power connectivity can also enable smart fabric applications such as clothing integrated with sensors to monitor a runner鈥檚 gait and vital signs that transmits the information directly to a user鈥檚 phone. In a second demonstration, the researchers from the 91探花 used conductive thread to sew an antenna into a cotton T-shirt, which was able to use ambient radio signals to transmit data to a smartphone at rates up to 3.2 kilobits per second.

The system works by taking an everyday FM radio signal broadcast from an urban radio tower. The 鈥渟mart鈥� poster or T-shirt uses a low-power reflector to manipulate the signal in a way that encodes the desired audio or data on top of the FM broadcast to send a 鈥渕essage鈥� to the smartphone receiver on an unoccupied frequency in the FM radio band.

鈥淥ur system doesn鈥檛 disturb existing FM radio frequencies,鈥� said co-author , 91探花associate professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering. 鈥淲e send our messages on an adjacent band that no one is using 鈥� so we can piggyback on your favorite news or music channel without disturbing the original transmission.鈥�

The team demonstrated three different methods for sending audio signals and data using FM backscatter: one simply overlays the new information on top of the existing signals, another takes advantage of unused portions of a stereo FM broadcast, and the third uses cooperation between two smartphones to decode the message.

鈥淏ecause of the unique structure of FM radio signals, multiplying the original signal with the backscattered signal actually produces an additive frequency change,鈥� said co-author , a 91探花postdoctoral researcher in computer science and engineering. 鈥淭hese frequency changes can be decoded as audio on the normal FM receivers built into cars and smartphones.鈥�

In the team鈥檚 demonstrations, the total power consumption of the backscatter system was 11 microwatts, which could be easily supplied by a tiny coin-cell battery for a couple of years, or powered using tiny solar cells.

The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Google Faculty Research Awards.

For more information, contact the research team at smartcities@cs.washington.edu.

91探花 researchers have introduced a new way of communicating that allows devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics to talk to everyday devices such as smartphones and watches.

This new “” works by converting Bluetooth signals into Wi-Fi transmissions over the air. Using only reflections, an interscatter device such as a smart contact lens converts Bluetooth signals from a smartwatch, for example, into Wi-Fi transmissions that can be picked up by a smartphone.

The new technique is described in a to be presented Aug. 22 at the annual conference of the Association for Computing Machinery鈥檚 in Brazil.

“Wireless connectivity for implanted devices can transform how we manage chronic diseases,” said co-author , a 91探花electrical engineering doctoral student. “For example, a contact lens could monitor a diabetic’s blood sugar level in tears and send notifications to the phone when the blood sugar level goes down.”

Due to their size and location within the body, these smart contact lenses are too constrained by power demands to send data using conventional wireless transmissions. That means they so far have not been able to send data using Wi-Fi to smartphones and other mobile devices.

Those same requirements also limit emerging technologies such as brain implants that treat , and may one day even .

The team of 91探花electrical engineers and computer scientists has demonstrated for the first time that these types of power-limited devices can “talk” to others using standard Wi-Fi communication. Their system requires no specialized equipment, relying solely on mobile devices commonly found with users to generate Wi-Fi signals using 10,000 times less energy than conventional methods.

“Instead of generating Wi-Fi signals on your own, our technology creates Wi-Fi by using Bluetooth transmissions from nearby mobile devices such as smartwatches,” said co-author , a recent 91探花doctoral graduate in electrical engineering who is now a research associate in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering.

The team’s process relies on a communication technique called backscatter, which allows devices to exchange information simply by reflecting existing signals. Because the new technique enables inter-technology communication by using Bluetooth signals to create Wi-Fi transmissions, the team calls it “interscattering.”

Interscatter communication uses the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or radios embedded in common mobile devices听 like smartphones, watches, laptops, tablets and headsets, to serve as both sources and receivers for these reflected signals.

In one example the team demonstrated, a smartwatch transmits a Bluetooth signal to a smart contact lens outfitted with an antenna. To create a blank slate on which new information can be written, the 91探花team developed an innovative way to transform the Bluetooth transmission into a “single tone” signal that can be further manipulated and transformed. By backscattering that single tone signal, the contact lens can encode data 鈥� such as health information it may be collecting 鈥� into a standard Wi-Fi packet that can then be read by a smartphone, tablet or laptop.

“Bluetooth devices randomize data transmissions using a process called scrambling,” said lead faculty , assistant professor of computer science and engineering. “We figured out a way to reverse engineer this scrambling process to send out a single tone signal from Bluetooth-enabled devices such as smartphones and watches using a software app.”

The challenge, however, is that the backscattering process creates an unwanted mirror image copy of the signal, which consumes more bandwidth as well as interferes with networks on the mirror copy Wi-Fi channel. But the 91探花team developed a technique called “single sideband backscatter” to eliminate the unintended byproduct.

“That means that we can use just as much bandwidth as a Wi-Fi network and you can still have other Wi-Fi networks operate without interference,” said co-author and electrical engineering doctoral student .

The researchers 鈥� who work in the UW’s and 鈥� built three proof-of-concept demonstrations for previously infeasible applications, including a smart contact lens and an implantable neural recording device that can communicate directly with smartphones and watches.

“Preserving battery life is very important in implanted medical devices, since replacing the battery in a pacemaker or brain stimulator requires surgery and puts patients at potential risk from those complications,” said co-author, associate professor of electrical engineering and of computer science and engineering.

“Interscatter can enable Wi-Fi for these implanted devices while consuming only tens of microwatts of power.”

Beyond implanted devices, the researchers have also shown that their technology can apply to other applications such as smart credit cards. The team built credit card prototypes that can communicate directly with each other by reflecting Bluetooth signals coming from a smartphone. This opens up possibilities for smart credit cards that can communicate directly with other cards and enable applications where users can split the bill by just tapping their credit cards together.

鈥淧roviding the ability for these everyday objects like credit cards – in addition to implanted devices – to communicate with mobile devices can unleash the power of ubiquitous connectivity,鈥� Gollakota said.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and Google Faculty Research Awards.

For more information, contact the research team at interscatter@cs.washington.edu. Read about related innovations from and .

An international team led by researchers at the (CSNE) based at the 91探花 is one of three finalists in a race to produce an implantable wireless device that can assess, stimulate and block the activity of nerves that control organs.

For the GlaxoSmithKline the team is working on an implantable device that could help restore bladder function for people with spinal cord injuries or millions of others who suffer from incontinence.

“For people with spinal cord injuries, restoring sexual function and bladder function are some of their top priorities 鈥� higher than regaining the ability to walk,” said , deputy director of the CSNE and 91探花associate professor of rehabilitation medicine and of physiology and biophysics.

“The vision is for these neural devices to be as ubiquitous as pacemakers or deep brain stimulators, where a surgeon implants the device and it’s seamless for the patient,” he said. “We’re really excited to make a difference in people’s lives and to help push these technologies forward.”

The CSNE team 鈥� one of 12 to compete in the challenge 鈥� joined forces with another team of experts from the University of Cambridge and University College London for the second round of the competition. The company will award up to $1 million in additional research funding to each team.

Another $1 million prize will go to the first group to deliver a device that is functional in small animal models.

“This open innovation construct provides the platform for future public and private collaborations, which will advance pre-clinical and clinical research concepts and ultimately deliver novel treatment paradigms to address unmet patient needs,”鈥� said Roy Katso, Director of Open Innovation and Funding Partnerships for GlaxoSmithKline.

The final implantable wireless device will be able to stimulate and block electrical signals that travel along the nerves and control specific organs. Stimulating the pelvic nerve causes the bladder to empty, for example, while blocking those signals could help someone who is unable to control his or her bladder.

However, numerous challenges persist 鈥� such as delivering power efficiently and without wires while ensuring the implanted device doesn’t overheat inside the body and limiting tissue reactions at the nerve interface.

The CSNE team at 91探花is using a wireless power transmitter developed by CSNE leader and 91探花associate professor of electrical engineering and of computer science and engineering . A similar technology is being used by Smith’s new company WiBotic Corp. to manufacture wireless power systems for robots and drones.

They designed the wireless device to interact with a rat’s pelvic nerve in one of two ways 鈥� both electronically and optically. Moritz and team member , 91探花associate professor of physiology and biophysics, have expertise in optogenetics, which uses light to control neurons. That approach may enable the team to stimulate the pelvic nerve without having to physically touch it, which may reduce swelling and scarring that can occur with direct nerve interfaces.

The University of Cambridge and University College of London researchers have deep expertise in nerve and bladder physiology, as well as packaging implantable devices so they don’t corrode or breakdown in the body’s moist and dynamic environment.

The competition’s big idea is to replace pharmaceuticals, which can affect many systems throughout the body, with wireless devices that enable much more targeted interventions by stimulating or blocking the activity of specific nerves that send signals to organs. These devices could also “read” how the organs are functioning and decide whether any treatment action is necessary at that moment.

“We want to be able to say, ‘Right now the blood pressure is high or the bladder is full 鈥� does the device need to do something or can the body be left alone?'” said Moritz. “That dramatically lowers the amount of treatment that’s needed, as opposed to having someone on a drug 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

After the competition concludes, the next steps will be to disseminate the technologies to the wider research community and begin working on human trials. The goal is to create a flexible platform that could act on a wide variety of organs.

“The idea is that many groups could be pushing towards different human applications at the same time 鈥� not just for the bladder but for any organ. So our platform needs to be robust enough that people can dream wildly about what they want to treat with neural devices rather than pharmaceuticals,” said Moritz.

Other 91探花team members include , postdoctoral fellow in physiology and biophysics, , assistant professor of biology, and , resident in rehabilitation medicine.

Team members from other institutions include , professor of experimental neurology at the University of Cambridge; , professor of neuroprosthesis engineering at University College London; , professor of analog and biomedical electronics at University College London; , assistant professor of materials science and engineering at MIT and a CSNE member; and , postdoctoral fellows at University College London and , postdoctoral fellow at University of Cambridge.

The project builds on research begun at CSNE, a NSF-funded Engineering Research Center that is headquartered at 91探花and also includes MIT and other educational institutions. Moritz is the deputy director of the center, Smith is the thrust leader for communications and interface who is responsible for hardware research and Anikeeva is a testbed leader.

Early hardware development was supported by funding from the , where Moritz and Smith are .

“It is gratifying to see the center’s hardware research efforts paying off so quickly.听 Selection by GlaxoSmithKline in this rigorous international competition shows that technologies emerging from the CSNE are at the leading edge of what is possible,” Smith said.

For more information on neuroscience aspects of the project, contact Moritz at ctmoritz@uw.edu. For technical aspects, contact Smith at jrs@cs.washington.edu.