14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created what is being referred to as a smart wallpaper, which is technically an antenna-filled surface whose purpose is to increase the Wi-Fi signal.
Technically, the wallpaper, which can be manufactured as a very thin flexible sheet, comes with over 3,000 wireless antennae whose purpose is to reflect the Wi-Fi signal into a room, pretty much sending it to the connected devices around it. The presented prototype uses a total of 3,720 antennae installed on a surface that measures just six meters.
This means that the smart wallpaper doesn’t require a power source because it’s based on a passive system that only plays the role of a mirror to reflect the signal, without any wiring or power required to operate.
Affordable system
While at first glance this is a super-expensive technology, it actually isn’t. The researchers explain that it costs only a few cents to build such an antenna, so overall, the final price for a smart wallpaper could be a smart investment for companies or warehouses.
The early tests conducted after installing the smart wallpaper shows that it can boost the Wi-Fi signal by up to ten times. A demo is projected to be presented in March at the USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI) in Santa Clara, California, as per VB.
“The core goal here was to explore whether we can use elements in the environment and arrange them to direct the signal in a way that we can actually control,” senior study author Hari Balakrishnan explained. “If you want to have wireless devices that transmit at the lowest possible power but give you a good signal, this seems to be one extremely promising way to do it.”
Of course, the technology is still in its early days, but with the right improvements and support from more researchers, it could end up becoming the next-generation method for passive Wi-Fi signal boosting.