According to Engadget, researchers at the University of Washington have developed a way for 3D printed plastic objects to transmit information over WiFi without battery or power, and they have been experimentally demonstrated to be able to use commercially available plastic items and WiFi receivers Vikram Iyer, a graduate student at the project, said in a statement: 'Our goal is to print some plastic stuff out of the house at a 3D printer so that they can send useful information to other devices '
But the biggest challenge is how to make these plastic items wirelessly communicate with WiFi, which no one can ever do. "
To do this, the project team used springs, gears and switches, such as 3D printing, that could be used to translate 'motion' into 'antenna transmission' messages.
For example, they made a anemometer (which is used to measure the wind speed), and fixed to a gear.When the gear rotates, the gear and embedded objects connected to the antenna, and then the antenna can reflect the surrounding WiFi signal, This signal can be decoded by the WiFi receiver.
The faster the wind speed, the faster the gear will rotate and the faster the signal will travel.The team also created a scale and a flow meter to measure the speed of the water flow.
In addition, they also printed three widgets - a button, a knob, and a slider - all working in a similar manner that could be used to exchange information with other smart devices.
The researchers also developed two smart objects, a bottle of detergent comes with a flow meter, which can be used to track the amount of detergent remaining, when it runs out, it can come directly to the order; there is a tube clamp , It can be used to measure the liquid in the test tube and track the stock.
Finally, they have also developed an object that puts iron in 3D printing in different modes, for example when it is read by a magnetometer in a smart phone, which can be used to convey important information about the object Such as what it is, who created it, or how a robot should interact with it.
Justin Chan, a researcher at the project, said: "While this looks like a normal 3D printed object, it has some invisible information that can be read by a smartphone."
The team is currently releasing their 3D models to the public so anyone can use them at home.
This work was also published recently in Computer Graphics, the Association for Computing Machinery's SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition.