Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc.

Zhihong Luo

Fadel Adib

Yunfei Ma

Carlo Giovanni Traverso

Nicholas Selby

Christoph Steiger

Qiping Zhang

Manish Singh

Multiple antennas of a beamformer may simultaneously transmit wireless signals at different frequencies. The signals may comprise synchronized, identical wireless commands, each at a different carrier frequency. The transmitted signals may constructively and destructively interfere with each other at a receiver antenna, to form a beat signal. When the transmitted signals constructively interfere, the beat signal may cause a voltage in the receiver to exceed a threshold voltage. The threshold voltage may be a minimum voltage at which a device, which is operatively connected to the receiver antenna, is able to perform energy harvesting or wireless communication. The beamformer may operate under blind channel conditions, because the transmitted frequencies may be selected in such a way as to maximize peak power delivered under all possible channel conditions. The beamformer may deliver wireless power to a sensor or actuator that is located deep inside bodily tissue.

Methods and apparatus for multi-frequency beamforming

A wideband, radio-frequency localization system may estimate the one-dimensional, two-dimensional or three-dimensional position and trajectory of a static or moving object. These estimates may have a high spatial accuracy and low latency. The localization may be determined based on phase or amplitude of a wideband signal in each frequency band in a set of multiple frequency bands. The localization may be based on a single shot of measurements across a wide band of radio frequencies, without frequency hopping. The measurements of the wideband signal may be taken over time and over space at multiple receivers. The localization may be based on measurements taken while a backscatter node remains in a first reflective state or in a second reflective state, rather than when the backscatter node is transitioning between reflective states. In some cases, the localization achieves sub-centimeter spatial resolution in each of three spatial dimensions.

Methods and apparatus for wideband localization

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Berkeley, CA, United States of America

Zhihong Luo