Demo: Enabling Ubiquitous Connectivity for Embedded Systems through Audio-Broadcasting Low-power Tags

Wireless connectivity challenges hinder large-scale deployment of embedded systems. We introduce AudioCast to address two critical issues: spectrum scarcity-induced contention and high power consumption of radio transmitters. The decline of FM-broadcast stations and the ubiquity of FM-receivers motivate the design of Audio-Cast. By leveraging the negative differential resistance of tunnel diodes—which occurs at low power—AudioCast rethinks the conventional transmitter design. Combined with their self-modulation capability, tunnel diode oscillators enable frequency modulated transmissions while consuming under 200 μW. The transmitter achieves upto 130 m range in line-of-sight and tens of meters in non-line-of-sight environments.