“PUMPING” data around a wireless network of sensors – just as blood is pumped around the human circulatory system – could allow the sensors’ batteries to last four times as long.
Sensor networks like the ones used for environmental monitoring are usually “tree-like”. Their branching structure means information gets from A to B quickly, but means devices have to be turned on permanently to co-ordinate the data traffic.
Now IBM’s TJ Watson Labs in New York have come up with a biologically inspired alternative: a “heartbeat” that synchronises the flow of information from node to node around the network. Nodes only turn on when the beat reaches them, saving battery power – but the system is slow because data has to travel all the way around the network.
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