Radio chip mimics human ear, only better
June 2, 2009
MIT engineers have built a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip, modeled
on the human inner ear, that could enable wireless devices capable of receiving
cell phone, Internet, radio and television signals.
Rahul Sarpeshkar, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer
science, and his graduate student, Soumyajit Mandal, designed the chip to mimic
the inner ear, or cochlea. The chip is faster than any human-designed
radio-frequency spectrum analyzer and also operates at much lower power.
"The cochlea quickly gets the big picture of what's going on in the sound
spectrum," said Sarpeshkar. "The more I started to look at the ear, the more I
realized it's like a super radio with 3,500 parallel channels."
Sarpeshkar and his students describe their new chip, which they have dubbed the
"radio frequency (RF) cochlea," in a paper to be published in the June issue of
the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. They have also filed for a patent to
incorporate the RF cochlea in a universal or software radio architecture that is
designed to efficiently process a broad spectrum of signals including cellular
phone, wireless Internet, FM, and other signals.
FULL STORY:
http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCOD ... monCount=0
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