Because it's much more efficient to send signals over short hops than long ones, such a network consumes very little power. Equipped with sensors for light, temperature, and humidity, a few hundred piconodes could control the climate in an office building. Piconodes could tag each item in a cargo shipment to ensure that a helicopter, say, arrives along with the necessary spare parts. Two companies are on the verge of introducing picoradio networks. And RFWaves of Or-Yehuda, Israel, has developed a system targeted at nonmilitary applications.
Military applications are a potentially huge market.
Commercial carriers tell us there is no good method of tracking items within cargo containers. If we don't do it, somebody else will. Indeed, interest in low-power networks has recently taken off. Meanwhile, the University of California's Berkeley Wireless Research Center is working on the ultimate picoradio network. Researchers say each node will cost 50 cents and consume a mere 100-millionths of a watt.