Wireless Survivor's Guide: Surviving 2.4 GHz At Low Power

By Jim Davis, Cypress Semiconductor Corp.

What do wireless sensor networks, industrial wireless sense and control, and the growing demand for personal area networks have in common? Two-things: wireless and ultra-low-power. Historically these two have always been contradictory to each other due to the physics and energy required to transmit signals as well as recently in response to the growing number of wireless solutions — spectrum congestion. This article details the challenges of operating in the 2.4 GHz spectrum while maintaining a very low power consumption budget. It introduces active power management and reliability as two factors of maintaining a low power budget while still surviving the interference challenges of the 2.4 GHz spectrum.

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