IEEE Future Directions
Related Articles
Imagine having a sensor that does not require any external power and that is so tiny you can place it anywhere. Stop imagining, here it is.
It has been developed by a team of researchers at the university of Michigan and announced in an article available on IEEE Xplore.
It is based on CMOS technology and its peculiarity is that it uses the ambient light to power itself. The photocell converting light into electricity is embedded in the chip, and the researchers have been able to create an architecture that does not decrease the luminosity of the sensor (previous attempts resulted in lowering the luminosity, hence the capability to capture the image). All this is done on a surface of just 1 square mm.
Adding a bit of storage and a communication support should n0t be a major problem, so we can imagine to have videocameras, basically invisible, that could be placed anywhere. Then using some communications tools, like your smartphone with NFC, you might be able to harvest the clips taken by these cameras.
This is a further step getting us closer to an aware environment: in order to have awareness you need to have sensing capabilities and this image sensor can provide eyes to any object, surface, ambient. Then, of course, you will need processing capabilities to make sense out of the sensors data and a connectivity fabric to link the two.
