WiFi currently has a relatively limited range. In addition, the number of antennas is also usually reduced in order to reduce the cost, with only several of them being high-end, even exceeding ten. However, a new discovery could make routers have thousands of small antennas without increasing their consumption.
The key is that researchers have managed to make the surface of the device part of the antennas instead of simply being plastic. Currently, the small size of the devices makes it difficult to put many antennas and keep a good signal when they are so close together.
RFocus: 10 times more range for a signal
To do this, they have developed what they have called RFocus , an intelligent surface that can act as a mirror or as a lens to focus the radiofrequency signals towards the location of the devices that are receiving the signal. With this they manage to increase the signal strength by 10.5 times , while increasing the capacity of each channel in 2.1 times in a real environment.
Thus, instead of using a few monolithic antennas such as current routers, the RFocus prototype has more than 3,000 antennas whose signal is adapted by software to maximize reception. Thus, we find a beamforming system that acts as an intermediary to manage the signal, instead of devices such as the router or the mobile that manage this activity.
In addition, each antenna has a cost of a few cents and does not add any additional consumption, the antennas do not consume more energy because no signal amplification is being used. Thus, the signal is still safe for humans because the total radiation and the energy of those electromagnetic waves are not being increased.
Thousands of antennas will be very easy to put in a router
The group of researchers has not specified whether this system is compatible with mass production using current technologies, nor if they have to refine the design to make it commercially viable. If we arrive, what we would find should be a kind of thin foil similar to RFID stickers placed inside the router. In addition, it will not be necessary to have so many antennas on commercial devices, since a few hundred will be more than enough.
Thus, we have the speed of our connection could be better over long distances, as well as much more stable and with less losses. With this, we would be reducing interference around us, and the 5 GHz band would already allow us to provide great coverage without having to resort to the 2.4 GHz band with its slower speed. Small IoT devices would also be benefited in which certain network control elements are currently not introduced to prevent them from being too large or consuming a lot of energy.
