Ultra-Low Power Wakeup Radios And The Internet Of Things

The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), a termed proposed by Kevin Ashton in 1999, is expected to accelerate in the coming years, propelled by the lower cost and increasing connectivity of the network. Cisco estimates that by 2017, there will be more than 19 billion global network connections (fixed/mobile personal devices, M2M connections, et al.), up from about 12 billion connections in 2012.

There are a huge number of applications for wireless sensors that may be grouped into the following categories:

• Environmental/earth monitoring
• Industrial monitoring (machine surveillance and preventative maintenance, equipment status)
• Agricultural monitoring
• Structural monitoring
• Security monitoring
• Health/personal monitoring
• Utility monitoring (water/gas/electricity)
• Smart home monitoring
• Asset tracking
• Military monitoring

Many of the communication devices for the IoT will have power constraints, due to their small size and the requirement to operate off small batteries for long periods of time. This paper will examine some of the requirements of such low power communication systems, the need for low power wakeup radios with example applications, and a comparison of candidate technology.