World’s First Public Televised Demo Of Weightless Technology On BBC News

In the demonstration, a model bridge equipped with strain gauges sensing displacement in the bridge structure is connected to an early evolution Weightless terminal device measuring 115mm x 60mm x 30mm built into the bridge structure. This communicates over a Weightless air interface to a base station that could be sited several kilometres from the bridge. In this demonstration a user application processes the data to determine when the parameters measured by the sensors integrated into the bridge structure fall outside of expected values to warn of potential structural problems such as metal fatigue and degradation. A video showing the demonstration can be seen at www.weightless.org/bridge.

Weightless technology offers compelling competitive advantages for machine to machine communications and is especially appropriate for large numbers of small, low cost sensors of the type demonstrated by these types of applications. With a cost of few dollars per terminal device, great signal propagation characteristics, a range of several kilometres and a battery life measured in years the Weightless Standard enables the Internet of Things market that alternative wireless technologies cannot commercially address and that are widely expected to require tens of billions of connections over the coming years.

Alan Scott, CEO of Argon Design commented “This public demonstration at a premier international event marks a watershed moment for Weightless technology” adding “we are proud to be showing the world’s first working Weightless application by a Weightless SIG Core Member”.

Commenting on the demonstration, Professor William Webb, CEO of the Weightless SIG said “This is a great proof point of the progress that the technology has made recently following the announcement of working silicon and completion of the Specification to version 1.0 earlier this year”. With over 950 worldwide Members already, the Weightless SIG continues to grow strongly and we expect to progressively see more applications developed over the course of the next few months”.

The 5th Future of Wireless International Conference took place on 1st & 2nd of July at The Møller Centre in Cambridge, UK. Over 300 delegates from around the world heard expert industry analysis and gained a unique insight into how we will interact with an augmented physical world and the impact it will have on services, infrastructure and devices; as well as who will be the key players in a new connected world. The Cambridge Debate, chaired by Peter Day, Business Correspondent at the BBC, posed the view that: ‘This house believes that mobile network operators will not be winners in the Internet of Things.’ Speaking for the motion was James Collier, CTO of Weightless Promoter Group Member, Neul, who was challenged by Alex Sinclair, CTO at GSMA.