F5: Low-power radios for sensor networks

Sensor node systems are expected to be a major growth field for semiconductor markets, and will connect to the cloud in a future cyber physical world. Wireless sensor networks (WSN) face multiple challenges from system design to low-power electronics and energy sources. Ultra-low-power radios are key elements in such systems, putting high demand on energy efficiency in different modes of operation (active, wake-up and sleep). This forum presents system perspectives and practical design aspects in various energy-efficient and short-range radio circuits and systems, including an introduction to various applications and their requirements for RF and digital signal processing in WSN systems. The technologies range from RF to digital signal processing and algorithms to give comprehensive understanding of recent advances. The forum begins with two high-level design talks on low power radio SoCs. The following four talks present ultra-low-power transceivers for body-area networks, sensor nodes, and health-monitoring applications. The last two talks cover efficient power management and emerging compression methodologies.