A group of engineers at the University of Washington has developed a way of transmitting video data direct from a camera module that is directly connected to an antenna to reduce power consumption by up to 10,000 times compared to conventional HD streaming. The aim is to use the technique to transmit video from cameras in AR devices to a smartphone for compression. The group presented the research at the Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation. The paper is free to download, but basically the video data is used to PWM modulate a backscatter radio signal that transmits pixel data to the receiver where it is converted to digital and compressed.
The group said that the power needed is low enough to allow the camera to be operated using energy harvesting. It claims to be able to stream 720p video with 60fps at 321μW and FullHD 60P at 806μW.
