SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will introduce novel energy-saving protocols which are critical for the successful wide range commercial deployment of wireless tag networks. A myriad of applications are emerging in which communication between low speed - very low cost tags (wireless nodes) and base stations designates energy conservation as a critical system parameter, such as warehouse identification tags, hospital ID tags, smart tags, intelligent ID cards, to name only a few of these applications. Tags are small devices with radio or infrared reception/transmission and processing capabilities, integrated in the size of an ID card or smaller, designed for the lowest possible cost. Cost minimization and network size prohibit the replacement of batteries which need to last for as long as the object needs to be identified, from weeks to several years. The design of wireless access protocols for tag networks requires, therefore, that transmission of, often delay sensitive data, occur under critical energy conservation and cost constraints. As classical access protocols do not meet these requirements, this project will introduce and evaluate several novel classes of protocols designated for these emerging low speed - low cost networks. The market potential for these systems is estimated at billions of dollars per year, underscoring the importance of this work.

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project from Boston Communications Networks, Inc. will develop and demonstrate a complete stack of energy-efficient protocols to foster widespread deployment of radio frequency (RF) network devices. Energy consumption has been identified as the limiting factor in the progress toward a new generation of various mobile devices (such as radio frequency and infrared identification device (RFID) tags, Smart Cards, portable/hand-helds). Their extremely small size and the need for their deployment in the billions of units, lead to extremely rigid cost constraints that cannot be met without energy minimization. Boston Communications Networks' protocol stack (consisting of two-way access, location management, and error control/transport layers) builds on Phase I results which quantitatively demonstrated an order-of-magnitude improvement over existing solutions. Due to the generic nature of the proposed communications protocol-stack solutions and the planned cooperation with leading industries and standardization bodies, this work has the potential to serve as an enabling technology that will allow, through cost reduction, the development of a heterogeneous mix of widely-deployable, new generations of light-weight, personal identification/communication devices. Because Boston Communications Networks is at the forefront with a working energy-efficient protocol, this project proffers an opportunity to set the standards for energy-efficient protocols where none currently exist. It is estimated that the RFID tag market alone will total $17 billion by the end of 1997 IEEE Review . Since virtually all hand-held devices need to conserve energy, a software product that minimizes energy becomes critical for the entire gamut of portable computing and communications devices.