Calhoun: How Can We Really Get to a Trillion Sensors to Power Internet of Things?

by Chiara Canzi,  UVA Today

In an interview, University of Virginia professor Benton Calhoun describes the Internet of Things encompassing a vision of growing “to hundreds of billions or even trillions of sensors in the next decade…integrated into the things that we wear, things that we use, or in our environment in a way that we don’t really notice…collecting useful information and getting that information back in such a way that it creates value for people.”

He says critical to realizing this vision is scaling up the required sensors, and Calhoun founded PsiKick to commercialize wearable, ultra-low-power wireless sensors originally developed for universities. These systems-on-chips communicate wirelessly and sense information from the surrounding environment, transmitting it to some existing structure, such as a cellphone or an existing network. The data is then routed back to stakeholders via the Internet or the cloud.

“The idea is to provide a platform for self-powered, battery-less devices in the ‘Internet of Things,'” Calhoun says. One use he envisions for PsiKick’s technology is for medical and clinical applications. “Instead of wearing a device that would collect information about your heart for a day, you can potentially have a device that harvests energy from the body, is worn in clothing, and keeps continuous monitoring,” Calhoun says.  Read the full interview