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Nov 2, 2022Shreyas Sen6 min read<br>Wi-R Technology White Paper

Hands interacting with a smartphone interface

Wi-R is a new non-radiative near-field communication technology that uses Electro-Quasistatic (EQS) fields for communication. The key differentiations that make Wi-R unique are outlined below.

Non-radiative Wire-like wireless

Traditional electromagnetic (EM) field-based wireless systems such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or UltraWideBand (UWB) radiate signals in every direction. For example, Bluetooth signals can be accessed by anyone in a 5-10 m radius. Wi-R, on the other hand, confines the signal around the surface, similar to wired communication. Someone sitting a row next to you does not even have access to the physical signal, leading to energy efficiency and additional physical security on top of the mathematical security that comes from encryption.

Traditional versus Wi-R wireless illustration

50x more Energy-Efficient than Traditional Wireless

The use of EQS fields, combined with proprietary techniques developed by Ixana, enables communication at 100x lower energy than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (around 10 nJ/bit), and over 10x lower energy than UWB (>1 nJ/bit). The inspiration for Wi-R comes from wired communication (for example, USB-C) where ultra-low energy (~1 pJ/bit) is commonplace. However, the personal area network (PAN) channels utilizing EM waves, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, do not at all look like broadband channels. The key patented invention enabling Wi-R is the ability to develop a broadband channel for the personal area network, enabling wire-like energy efficiencies.

50x lower energy bar chart comparing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, UWB, and Wi-R

Wi-R is your Personal Secure Broadband solving the "last-meter problem" in Body Area Network (BAN)

For Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and many other applications of augmented humans, there is a need to connect one or many devices on the human to a central hub on the human. Connecting each device with an off-human router individually is extremely energy-inefficient and reduces channel capacity due to co-existence issues among devices on the same human as well as interactions among devices on multiple humans.

Moreover, there is a privacy issue as sensitive data can be snooped from up to 10 m away. Wi-R solves these problems by creating an EQS bubble near the surface (How does Wi-R compare with other Near-field communication techniques?

The prominent near-field communication products available in the market are NFC and NFMI. Near-Field Communication (NFC) is an extremely short-range communication method typically used for payment. Near-Field Magnetic Induction (NFMI) is a longer-range version of NFC and has been commonly used for connecting one earbud to another for relaying audio for synchronous playback in both ears.

Both NFC and NFMI use Magneto-Quasistatic (MQS) fields, creating a magnetic bubble for communication. They circulate current in an inductor or coil to create magnetic fields that are picked up by another coupled inductor or coil nearby. Humans being transparent to magnetic fields does not provide any particular advantage limiting the range to a few cm for NFC and creating high channel loss for longer distances for NFMI. Moreover, the range is similar between the human as well as away from the human. Finally, to obtain low channel loss often these MQS techniques need to use resonance, which leads to narrowband channels and hence low data rates (~600 Kbps in NFMI) and higher energy (~5 nJ/b).

Conversely, Wi-R can be thought of as the dual of NFMI, which utilizes tiny amounts of EQS fields and benefits from moderate conductivity and high permittivity of a structure to confine the signal on the conducting structure, i.e., the signals are present throughout the structure but not away from it. This also leads to the ability to create broadband or wideband channels, leading to high data rates (up to 20 Mb/s) and extreme energy efficiency (What does Wi-R enable that is not possible today?

Wi-R’s transformative capabilities enable applications that are limited only by designer imagination (and physics). Some of the prominent features are:

Combine touch, intent, and communication in a single seamless action

Simplified pairing for smart devices: user-initiated touch-based pairing reduces setup friction

Touch selectivity: transfer contacts with a fist bump

Multiple time-synchronized wearables: imagine up to 25 body motion trackers

Ultra-low-energy: all-day, real-time, distributed AI

High-speed: stream video from AR headset to smartphone

Physically secure: additional layer of security for sensitive data or action

Negligible inter-human interference: increases capacity of communication in a space with multiple humans, each with multiple wearables

Charging-free patches: sensing energy is typically low for many applications. Communication energy and peak power requirements...