WPAN as innovation?

jon at rejon.org jon at rejon.org
Fri Apr 15 01:51:45 EDT 2011


Ok, this is all super cool. I consolidated your guys answers here:

http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Ben_WPAN

If you guys have more to add, there are some sections that would be good to
get more notes like progress and outcomes. Even just those links to the
mailing list are useful. I needed somewhere to point people.

I've been talking to a bunch of people about WPAN and the innovative parts
of copyleft hardware. So, I might have some questions which I hope provide
another dimension to what we are working on, and will do my best to
integrate onto the wiki.

I'm trying to think more about why someone in the real world (consumers,
investors, technologists, etc) would be interested in our tech.

My life post-meeting-Wolfgang, I now refrain from noting speculative
conversations I have but just not that my silence is not indicative of
inactivity, but mostly refrain from getting people's hopes up ;) and making
myself sound more vaporous than I am ;)

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Werner Almesberger <werner at almesberger.net
> wrote:

> I wrote:
> > With my ATBEN/ATUSB prototypes, I've obtained good to acceptable BER
> > for a distance between stations of 4-7 m indoors in a residential
> > area with relatively few interferences.
>
> A clarification on the error rate (BER = Bit Error Rate, PER = Packet
> Error Rate):
>
> IEEE 802.15.4 defines a maximum PER of 1% for a PSDU of 20 bytes.
> This means that all bits of the PSDU, the length (1 byte) and the SFD
> (1 byte) be received without errors, and that enough bits of the
> preamble (4 bytes) must be received for the receiver to synchronize.
> To keep the numbers simple, let's assume that's 200 bytes in total.
> Thus
>
> 1-PER = 1-(1-BER)^200
>
> With PER = 1%, we get a BER of about 50 ppm.
>
> Since our primary usage scenario, Internet access, would often use
> maximum-sized packets, I used max-sized packets for my measurements as
> well. The maximum PSDU size is 127 bytes. So we get 200+8*(127-20) =
> 1056 bits.
>
> Aiming for a PER of 1% with full-sized packets, the BER has to be
> lower, about 9.5 ppm.
>
> - Werner
>

I learn a lot from you guys! So great! I'm excited by this project...super
excited!

My friends Sean Bonner, Joi Ito and Bunnie Huang are working on this pop-up
project http://rdtn.org to make radiation sensors. I'm actually supposed to
be in Tokyo right now working with them on some other projects, but the
tsunami/earthquake happened, and they got into this website and making
radiation sensors.

http://blog.seanbonner.com/2011/04/11/what-im-working-on-rdtn/

Well, you can imagine that I pitched them hard on copyleft hardware, but I
was too late and now Bunnie and some other tech companies are working on
this *product.*

However, that is not the point, but rather, I think the sensor networks are
super important for the future of our civilization.

Part of what makes the Internet successful is that it allows for humans to
stay spread out more, so we don't annihilate each other. And, the success
rate for our species increases with increase of disasters, wars, disease,
etc, as the population increases in size.

Well, sensors are part of this mix IMO. So, I look forward to seeing how we
can work on both sensors (getting info), sending that info
(internet/network/WPAN), and using that info (people/us!).

The Internet are the wires, but we need to extend our bodies/information
gathering apparatuses and our senses, hence sensors are important for
survival of our species. And, a great place for us to occupy as copyleft
hardware.

Bravo Werner!

A sidenote, where should the Ben WPAN enhanced page go on the wiki? I think
we should have a stack of our core technologies on the main page.

What else are we doing that is innovative and in that technology stack (and
not talking products!)?

Jon

-- 
Jon Phillips
http://rejon.org/ | http://fabricatorz.com/
chat/skype: kidproto | irc: rejon
+1.415.830.3884 (global) | +1-510-499-0894 (sf)
+86-187-1003-9974 (beijing)
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