The latest buzz...

If you are looking for ways to expand the capabilities of your Mote deployment, there's a new sensor you should look into - introducing the new BumbleBee Radar! The BumbleBee is a coherent, pulsed Doppler radar offering rich information at a strikingly low price. Introduced in mid-April by The Samraksh Company, the radar ships ready for use with Crossbow's TelosB Motes.

 

Being a pulsed Doppler radar, the BumbleBee measures radial velocity directly. Because it is coherent, you can determine the sign of the velocity and measure the time structure of relative motion very precisely, even for small motions! Range is not measured directly, but in some contexts you can infer range from motion information.

The BumbleBee produces phase information directly resulting in motion information with a resolution of a fraction of a wavelength (i.e. fractions of a centimeter of displacement) which is an order of magnitude finer than if the radar were non-coherent. This information can be received at a rate of ~300 complex (i.e. real and imaginary pairs) samples per second. This capability opens up opportunities for original research and development in diverse signal processing applications.

BumbleBee's sensitivity is optimized for the normal day-to-day movements of people which makes it a compelling choice for monitoring and classifying human activities in commercial and recreational settings. This device could be used to monitor the usage of urban playgrounds, public parks, employer provided recreational facilities, office conference rooms and waiting areas. Quantitative measurements of loitering, underuse, overuse and unauthorized use would provide an improved basis for setting policy, deciding layouts or evaluating security measures.

Other interesting applications include the classification of unique patterns of movement, such as dancing or fighting in nightclubs, exercising or falling in a retirement home, and even working or sitting around on a construction site. Automated detection of various activities would expedite response in abnormal situations and provide positive feedback in normal situations. Not all applications need to center on people of course! For example BumbleBee can be used to do non-contact wobble detection of rotating machinery in industrial settings, monitor livestock activity, even recognize rodents or snakes in remote parts of a building or an urban infrastructure!

The BumbleBee facilitates information rich applications without compromising on Mote-scale constraints. It uses less than 40 mW or total power, has a range of ~10m, and is form factor compatible with Motes. Most importantly, its technology facilitates a new cost paradigm that is more compatible at a system level with the use of large scale Mote networks. At $100 USD/each, price is its most innovative feature! For more information contact info@samraksh.com.

BumbleBee is patented, but a usage license is made available as part of the purchase price for research usage. The Samraksh Company also promises very reasonable terms for small and mid-scale industrial applications. The radar conforms to FCC regulations for operation within the ISM unlicensed band (at 5.8GHz). Non-research applications may need additional FCC certification.