David Wentzloff receives CAREER Award for research in energy-autonomous systems

Prof. David Wentzloff, assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was recently awarded an NSF CAREER award for his research project, “Ultra-Low Power Radios for Energy-Autonomous Systems.”

Prof. Wentzloff aims to improve the modeling of wireless channels for a wide range of applications through new wireless communication circuits and architectures, and development of ultra-low power radios for dense wireless environments – such as sensor networks.

His research addresses critical needs in the area of wireless communication for the growing field of ubiquitous, energy-autonomous sensing devices. According to Prof. Wentzloff, it will not be long until vanishingly-small, ubiquitous sensors find their way into the 1000’s of objects that people unconsciously interact with on a daily basis. With half of the global population projected to have over 1000 sensors in their lives by 2020, this translates into more than 3 trillion sensors deployed – a number that easily dwarfs the entire semiconductor market today.

At the same time, there is a growing energy gap between the power consumed by electronics in millimeter-scale wireless computing devices, and the amount of energy that can be stored and harvested. The wireless communication component typically dominates the total power consumption in modern sensor nodes, and this wireless component is Prof. Wentzloff’s specialty.

His research focuses broadly on low-power integrated circuits (ICs) for wireless communication in energy-constrained (e.g. powered by harvested energy) and volume-constrained (e.g. cubic-mm sensor nodes) applications. More specifically, his research group focuses on: 1) Synthesizable all-digital radios and radio building blocks, 2) Wireless body sensor networks (channel modeling, radios, and antennas), and 3) radios and interfaces for the mm-scale class of computers. He directs the Wireless Integrated Circuits and Systems Group.

Additional Information: Prof. Wentzloff’s CAREER Award Posting by NSF

The CAREER grant is one of the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards, conferred for “the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.”

Prof. Wentzloff’s award is in the NSF Division of Computer and Network Systems.