Introducing the Wireless Ultra Smart Sensor

Traditional wireless sensors rely on monolithic transceivers optimizing cost but offering a very low flexibility. On the other hand, microwaves in the GHz range are used for displacement and position sensing. In this work a new architecture for wireless sensors, called wireless ultra smart sensor, is introduced. The new sensor architecture is built using software defined radio concepts and it has the ability to communicate and make measurements using the same radio frequency front-end. The first experimental results, investigating both the data and time domains, demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. For instance, a low-level full software timestamping of incoming data in the radio frequency front-end can help in measuring the time of flight with a standard deviation in the order of 20 ns.