MIT engineers all ears over ultra broadband low-power radio chip

摘要

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built an ultra broadband, low-power radio chip, modelled on the human inner ear, which could enable wireless devices capable of receiving mobile phone, internet, radio and television signals.rnRahul Sarpeshkar, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, said the chip, designed to mimic the cochlea, is faster than any human-designed radio-frequency spectrum analyser and operates at much lower power.rn"The cochlea quickly gets the big picture of what's going on in the sound spectrum. The more I started to look at the ear, the more I realised it's like a super radio with 3,500 parallel channels."rnThe cochlea uses fluid mechanics, piezoelectrics and neural signal processing to convert sound waves into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.