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Towards Battery-Free HD Video Streaming [video]
- jv22222 9y agoThis is the kind of submission that usually never gets anywhere on HN but it's very good. Actually, there is a lot of great stuff that gets submitted that never gets anywhere. It would be cool if somehow there was a manually edited "great but never got anywhere" stream for HN. Edit: Now I've gone and said that, watch this get a 1000 points ;)
- mdturnerphys 9y agoLike this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380
- mrep 9y agoThere have been lots of posts about new technologies that have not panned out so HN scepticism is to be expected (remember memristors)
- jacobush 9y agoI am still hoping for "yet" in the case of memristors.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- _jmar777 9y agoThis is truly incredible. I've spent the last 4 years neck deep in live video broadcasting solutions for consumer, commercial, and government use cases, and this just blew my mind.
- Arbalest 9y agoMy immediate thought is, even easier to install reversing cameras for older cars. Now my second thought is, spying devices, a wholly more troubling prospect.
- coatmatter 9y agoMaybe I'm just too old-fashioned, but I generally dislike the idea of reversing cameras. I only reverse if I'm completely sure of my surroundings, based on turning back and using my eyes as well as the mirrors. Looking anywhere else tends to feel like a distraction. Most people drive and reverse way too fast.
- Spien 9y agoThis is moving towards A Deepness in the Sky level surveillance tools.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bwang29 9y ago480p at 10fps at 16ft is really incredible. That's enough distance to put cameras all over cars to sense environments around it. My first immediate thought is to retrofit old cars with lane-changing assist camera with this in traffic.
- brod 9y agoThe solution to that problem is not battery-free video streaming.
- crooked-v 9y agoThe power requirements of a camera aren't even a tiny amount of the complication of retrofitting existing cars.
- aetherspawn 9y agoPerhaps it is, as cameras require looming and looming requires removing trim and finicking around which is expensive in man hours. Especially if literally every car that comes in is different. Also fat looms the length of a car can still cost hundreds of dollars said and done. Cost of installation is greatly reduced if all you need to do is line it up and rivet it on and there is no need to customise the power system to different cars (ie 12V, 24V) and loom layouts (ie old looms are crappy, hard to get apart for splicing, wires are old and might break during retrofit, some cars have +ive chassis)
- Defenestresque 9y agoUnless I'm mistaken, they actually achieved 720p at 10fps/16ft not 480p.
- brianshaler 9y agoIt seems transmitting the raw sensor data would make it tricky to do this securely. Would it be possible to encrypt the signal with some sort of hardware cipher?
- ww520 9y agoThe transmitter and the receiver are in close proximity. Whatever transmitted, the eavesdropper can observe nearby anyway.
- justwalt 9y agoHow about through a wall? That would make security applications in an apartment a bit less attractive, and I’m sure there are others. I wonder if encryption would be possible without much extra power overhead.
- ww520 9y agoSome sort of directional shielding? Isn't backscattering light directional? Someone knows more about backscattering can have a better answer.
- pishpash 9y agoAnalog encryption might be possible if the sender and receiver measure some common optical signal (assuming optically local security is what you're after).
- hatsunearu 9y agoMaybe, but good luck doing encryption without a power source.
- InclinedPlane 9y agoThere is a power source: the radio signal, but there's only microwatts available. Nevertheless, it's not impossible that there might be some clever solution to the problem, however, since the signal is analog that makes things a bit more challenging.
- lessclue 9y agoIncredible. Since it is analog and unencrypted, it’s wide open to attacks though, isn’t it?
- pocketstar 9y agowhat is there to attack? if someone is in range to get the backscattered signal they can just see what the camera is looking at...its 16ft LOS, for privacy concerns at such low powers any walls would attenuate the backscatter.
- muizelaar 9y agoWhat about spoofing or jamming the signal?
- pocketstar 9y agoThe new batteryless wireless sensors coming out of uw are incredible. Dr. Smith is leading some great work. My interest started when I heard of the WISP [0]. The RF power harvesting design is so simple and elegant. It is amazing what can be done with uW of power! [0] https://sensor.cs.washington.edu/WISP.html https://sensor.cs.washington.edu/WISP.html
- rasz 9y agoIndeed, its _so amazing_ it has potential of replacing $.2 watch battery some day.
- edoloughlin 9y agoIt is amazing. With this approach, you wouldn't have to change the battery every 10 minutes.
- icoder 9y agoAlthough I don't recognise myself in the style of the comment you're responding to, I would like to point out a (watch) battery will not die in 10 minutes when drawing microwats only. I think we want to separate low energy usage, which is a cool feat by itself, and RF harvesting (which goes well with low energy usage, but so might a small, cheap, battery).
- edoloughlin 9y agoI'm not an RF engineer, but the video mentioned that the 'traditional' WiFi component would draw 1W. I assumed that, if you add a battery, it's to power this part.
- rasz 9y agoNo, backscatter is the only legit part of this writeup, everything else is made up. "we simulate an ASIC, which achieves 60 fps 720p and 1080p HD video streaming for 321 µW and 806 µW, respectively" simulate, how convenient! "Our inter and intra-frame compression algorithms reduces total bandwidth requirements by up to two orders of magnitude compared to raw video" so they also invented mpeg4 level of compression 1mW codec. You might wonder how such an amazing compression codec works? its middle-out. They transmit "fullhd" by transmitting ~100x50 resolution intra frames ":). Everything is Simulated, Estimated, Planned, Theorized, Calculated and Faked. That cool 1080 YT clip of them walking around the corridor just after showing you face mounted camera models? Never happened, prototype is BW 112×112, "simulated" again. Their setup can do 1080@60 of a static picture, there is only enough bandwidth to sustain ~2fps without dropping data. They even conveniently kept all the calculations ignoring color (3x the data). Reminds me of energy harvesting wristwatch crowdfunding HN was raving about few months back, conveniently ignoring particular design including battery able to power it for couple of years.
- ww520 9y agoThis is amazing tech. Kudos for the theoretical foresight and the execution to make it come to life.
- baobrien 9y agoI'm really impressed with the bandwidth. Being analog and only having back-scatter for the modulation, I thought it'd be way worse than current digital or old analog schemes, but from the paper, they're saying 2.8Mhz worst case for 720p@10fps, 0.98Mhz on average.
- jtchang 9y agoIt's crazy what you can do with such little power. Basically these cameras need no power at all.
- foxfired 9y agoSomewhat related, a few days ago there was (is) a Kickstarter for a wireless 1080p surveillance camera that last a whole year with a single charge. Eufy Edit: Added name
- free2rhyme214 9y agoThis is pretty freaking cool.
- MPSimmons 9y agoThis is a very cool first effort. I don't think it's suitable as a security system yet, because it seems like it would be so easy to overwhelm the relevant spectrum. Eventually maybe.
- chime 9y agoDepends on the kind of security system. I manage over 150 IP cameras in our internal facility CCTV system and it is expensive to pull Ethernet cables to 10 different spots near the ceiling in a single production room just 20x30ft. I would buy these for $300/each if it meant I only need a couple of $500 hubs at desk level per room. I'm not worried about sabotage/jamming etc. We are trying to monitor OSHA-violations, accidents, and quality control. If I didn't have to worry about power, I would put multiple cameras in every warehouse aisle, loading dock, and doorway. Local storage is embarrassingly cheap but dragging CAT5/6 all over, supporting ton of PoE switches, and coordinating with facility staff to maintain cameras 20ft up the wall is very expensive and time consuming. I would also buy like 20 of these for my house and live-stream my mini zoo of prairie dogs, goats, tortoises, and birds.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI like it. Throw a bunch of these around the city and you have some interesting applications.
- iandanforth 9y agoSeems like this could be useful for AR. I'm sure adding two front-facing cameras to the Vive Pro cut into both power and bandwidth budgets. I'd love to hear from an AR expert on this!
- paulie_a 9y agoWhat is AR?
- NiceGuy_Ty 9y agoAugmented Reality (e.g., Pokemon Go)
- rsingla 9y agoThis is quite an interesting concept in general, with cool results. Could there be extensions to other real-time imaging modalities (ultrasound for example)? Anyone have a hypothesis?
- hnaccy 9y agoTechnically very interesting but also depressing that the panopticon continues to improve unabated.
- stefanpie 9y agoThe recived signal at 16 feet looks suprisingly good, you could probably fix it up with a bit of image processing and neural networks on the receiving end (eg. Smartphones)
- jsolson 9y agoI saw the presentation for their paper at NSDI last week. I was (inwardly) giddy the whole time. They had a live demo. It doesn't even resemble something that could be turned into a real product in the near term. It is, despite that, comically amazingly cool tech.
- jl6 9y agoCould this harvesting technique power battery-free AirPods?
- std_throwaway 9y agoFor transmission of data yes, but you still need "lots" of energy to drive the loudspeakers.
- Rjevski 9y agoAirPods no, but microphones yeah.
- kristianp 9y agoIn the video and paper, they don't actually explain what backscatter is in this context. The wifi signal is what's being "backscattered". Here's some of the leadup papers about it: https://passivewifi.cs.washington.edu/files/passive_wifi.pdf https://passivewifi.cs.washington.edu/files/passive_wifi.pdf https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~gshyam/Papers/wifibackscatter.pdf https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~gshyam/Papers/wifibackscatt...
- lopmotr 9y agoHere's a video explaining WiFi backscatter. It really is an amazing concept even without doing HD video with it. All kinds of devices - I'm imaging home automation sensors - could become batteryless. http://iotwifi.cs.washington.edu/ http://iotwifi.cs.washington.edu/
- ww520 9y agoThat is an amazing concept, simple and effective, just reflecting backscattered wifi signal on and off to encode data.
- nightcracker 9y ago> All kinds of devices - I'm imaging home automation sensors - could become batteryless. That's terrifying.
- therein 9y agoYou can still use jammers to prevent backscatter from being readable but your jamming signal will just power the sensor more. :)
- gjem97 9y agoThanks, that second paper is helpful. The OP is really the proof that passive Wifi is actually useful. In my opinion, the real advance here is in that second paper you cite, the fact that they've built Wifi enabled devices that are powered by the Wifi signal itself.
- jayd16 9y agoThis is pretty interesting and seems transferable to any application where you have a data source you don't mind pouring energy into as long as that data source doesn't need dedicated power. You could apply this to other types of sensors, such as perhaps accelerometers or microphones. Device locations could be a smart wearable, a surgical implant, or some kind of hard to reach diagnostic sensor. I suppose we already use something similar in rfids but I guess the novelty comes from updating sensor data instead of a ROM. Very cool stuff.
- boxcardavin 9y agoThis is an incredible outcome and really shows how much work these UW grad students and Dr Smith have been working on low power passive tech. Great stuff, I wish more people in software were versed in physical tech so they could create hardware to enable their ideas.
- hansjorg 9y agoThis reminds me of Theremin's Great Seal bug that was placed in the US embassy in Moscow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
- awelkie 9y agoDefinitely, this project is basically the Great Seal Bug but for photodiodes. The authors even mention the Great Seal bug in their paper.
- pishpash 9y agoAnalog modulation? So interference will easily kill the signal?
- Animats 9y agoI'm amazed they can get so much bandwidth out of backscatter. Their previous work [1] was more like RFID tag bandwidth. [1] http://iotwifi.cs.washington.edu/files/wifiBackscatter.pdf http://iotwifi.cs.washington.edu/files/wifiBackscatter.pdf
- alkonaut 9y agoHow does backscattering work in the presence of multiple networks?
- fredley 9y agoI think your response to this will depend on whether or not you've read Dave Eggers' The Circle, in which battery-free wireless cameras play a central role. (Spoiler: it doesn't go well). Imagine the current state of blanket surveillance, particularly in dense urban cities like London, but everywhere, invisibly. Cheap, battery-free, weatherproof cameras are a step towards this. P.S.: The book isn't great, but it's miles better than the film.
- VMG 9y agoThe response needs to factor in that this is more or less inevitable. The solution to potential power abuse must be Sousveillance.
- fredley 9y agoOr that video manipulation will become so easy and commonplace that video has zero value as evidence.
- aerique 9y agoWhy wouldn't the average government just outlaw Sousveillance / Inverse surveillance?
- VMG 9y agoThey would. Enforcement is a separate issue
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoRules don't help as much in real life as we think. They are imaginary, and have influence on our behavior only because we let them. If violating a rule has no consequence or little chance of detection, we can expect large-scale violation. Further, if an action satisfies some person ethic but violates a public rule, many folks will take that action anyway. Violating the speed limit to get a spouse to medical aid. Violating a confidence to stop injury. Things like that. If a rule is counter to human nature (curiosity, personal safety) then it is likely to be useless.
- awelkie 9y agoVery cool project. I wonder if compressed sensing would be useful here. In the paper they describe this custom (and seemingly ad-hoc) video compression algorithm that is suitable for the low-power device. Basically, the camera averages blocks of pixels into "super pixels" all in the analog domain, sends these super pixels over the wireless link, and then the receiver can request the individual pixels of any super pixel that seems like it might have changed since the last frame. But with compressed sensing, can't all of this be done by sending random linear combinations of all pixel values (like the single pixel camera)? It seems like then you can avoid the bi-directional link and also get rate adaptation for free.
- awelkie 9y agoAlso, in the paper they say they used pulse-width modulation for the backscatter signal instead of just attaching the sensors directly to the antenna like the Great Seal Bug because the dynamic range of the photodiodes is much less than that of a microphone and they wanted to avoid using an amplifier (section 3.1 in the paper). But the PWM requires power as well. Would an amplifier that only has to map the range of a photodiode to the range of a microphone really require that much more power? And if so, are we talking like twice the power, 10x, 100x?
- jlebrech 9y agothis would be nice for a safety necklace cam.
- roywiggins 9y agoQuick, someone put a blockchain on it. Battery-free blockchain Internet-of-Things sounds like a several million dollar ICO to me!
- jacquesm 9y agoI just spent a lot of time researching energy harvesting (about a two week project) and I'm extremely impressed by this. To just power a simple sensor (temp, pressure) and sending out readings is a non-trivial thing to design in such a way that it works reliably. To do a lot of processing and to power a hungry sensor such a camera is orders of magnitude more complex.
- rasz 9y agoThey didnt. They simulated powering 112x112 black&white sensor, the rest is just props and 'recreations'.
- jacquesm 9y agoIt says: "Finally, we design a proof-of-concept prototype with off-the-shelf hardware components that successfully backscatter 720p HD video at 10 fps up to 16 feet." Which to me reads they have it working in principle the other design will be an optimization.
- rasz 9y agoSo even here it says 720p instead of fullhd :), and when you read the paper you learn they didnt even do that, they used 100x100 BW camera module in prototype. 720 transmission was done with a laptop.
- timeisapear 9y agoWorth noting that the pretty HD pictures came from a laptop hooked up to a DAC converter to simulate an analog HD video camera. The true analog camera shown on the page had nowhere near HD color resolution (though it could still recognize faces in a parking lot with 95% accuracy--impressive in itself.)
- freeflight 9y agoReading that instantly reminded me of the Great Seal bug the Soviets gifted to US Ambassador W. Averell Harriman in 1945 [0] I'm not an engineer, but as I understand it the principles at work here are very similar? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
- Relys 9y agoMy first thought too. :)
- vanderZwan 9y agoTangentially related to that: a Dutch radar company apparently was responsible for reverse engineering that for the CIA https://thecorrespondent.com/3789/operation-easy-chair-or-how-a-little-company-in-holland-helped-the-cia-bug-the-russians/116534484-2a3d7f11 https://thecorrespondent.com/3789/operation-easy-chair-or-ho...
- xori 9y agoImagine everyone with google glasses broadcasting what they see unencrypted to people within ~20ft. Super cool.
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y agoSurely everyone within 20ft of them can pretty much see what they see anyway?
- DanAndersen 9y agoIt'd be useful for going around corners, visibility in parking lots, situational awareness for teams of military/SWAT in indoor environments, etc.
- bookofjoe 9y ago"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke