IEEE Spectrum

64 Pages·2021·64.302 MB·English

Facebook’s Real Plan for Hacking Ham Radio for The End of Diabetes? FOR THE
Cryptocurrency Financial Phone-Free Texts It’s all in A smart artificial pancreas TECHNOLOGY
services is just a start the Arduino adjusts insulin on the fly INSIDER
P.10 P.14 P.38 DECEMBER 2021
Inside
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A handful of the 50
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Suborbitals, the world’s
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spaceflight program.
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VOLUME 58 / ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2021
The First 22
Crowdfunded
Astronaut
A DIY rocket is under con­
struction in a Copenhagen
warehouse. By Mads Stenfatt
Creating the 38
Artificial Pancreas
It dispenses just the right
amount of insulin at just the
right time.
By Boris Kovatchev &
Anna Kovatcheva
Ohm’s Law + 44
Kirchhoff’s Current
Law = Better AI
Doing AI using analog circuits
saves power. By Geoffrey W.
Burr, Abu Sebastian, Takashi
Ando & Wilfried Haensch
NEWS 6
6G Power Struggles (p.6)
Jupiter’s Electric Blanket (p.8)
Facebook Cryptocurrency (p.10)
HANDS ON 14
A self-contained messenger for
ham radio.
CROSSTALK 18
Numbers Don’t Lie (p.18)
Gizmo (p.20)
Macro & Micro (p.21)
PAST FORWARD 76
Bright Lights of Christmas
THE INSTITUTE 62
Y
AM AC Grid History
L
A
/
L The first three­phase AC
A
C
I electrical plant.
OR 30
T
S
I
H

N
O
TI The Smartly
C
E
L
L
CO Dressed

T
T
E
ER Spacecraft
V
E

:
T
GH Electronic fabrics sensitive to vibration and charge
I
R could revolutionize space structures. ON THE COVER:
R
FA By Juliana Cherston & Joseph A. Paradiso Photo by Mads Stenfatt
Photo by Bob O’Connor DECEMBER 2021  SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG  1
TAP.
CONNECT.
NETWORK.
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Connect to IEEE–
no matter where you
are–with the IEEE App.
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Schedule, manage, BACK STORY
or join meetups
A Skydiver Who Sews
virtually
Get geo and
interest-based
Mads Stenfatt first contacted Copenhagen Suborbitals with
recommendations
some constructive criticism. In 2011, while looking at photos
Read and download of the DIY rocketeers’ latest rocket launch, he had noticed a
your IEEE magazines camera mounted close to the parachute apparatus. Stenfatt
sent an email detailing his concern—namely, that a parachute’s lines could
Create a personalized easily get tangled around the camera. “The answer I got was essentially,
experience ‘If you can do better, come join us and do it yourself,’ ” he remembers.
That’s how he became a volunteer with the world’s only crowdfunded
Locate IEEE members
crewed spaceflight program.
by location, interests,
As an amateur skydiver, Stenfatt [above] knew the basic mechanics of
and affiliations
parachute packing and deployment. He started helping Copenhagen
Suborbitals design and pack parachutes, and a few years later he took over
the job of sewing the chutes. He had never used a sewing machine before,
but he learned quickly over nights and weekends at his dining room table.
One of his favorite projects was the design of a high-altitude parachute
for the Nexø II rocket, launched in 2018. While puzzling over the design
of a prototype’s air intakes, he found himself on a Danish sewing website
looking at brassiere components. He decided to use bra underwires to
stiffen the air intakes and keep them open, which worked quite well.
Though he eventually went in a different design direction, the episode is
a classic example of the Copenhagen Suborbitals ethos: Gather inspiration
and resources from wherever you find them to get the job done.
Today, Stenfatt serves as the team’s lead parachute designer, frequent
spokesperson, and astronaut candidate, as he writes about in this issue N
H
A
on p. 22. He also continues to skydive in his spare time, with hundreds D
R
O
of jumps to his name. Having ample experience zooming down through J

K
the sky, he’s intently curious about what it would feel like to go the I
R
N
other direction. ■ HE
2  SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG  DECEMBER 2021
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CONTRIBUTORS
 JULIANA CHERSTON
Cherston is a Ph.D. candidate in
the Responsive Environments
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Susan Hassler, [email protected] IEEE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Group at the MIT Media Lab. In
PRESIDENT&CEO Susan K. “Kathy” Land, [email protected]
this issue, she and the group’s EHDaIrrTyO GRoIlAdsLt eDinI R(DEiCgTitOaRl)S, [email protected] [phone] Fax: [phone]
director, Joseph A. Paradiso, Glenn Zorpette (Development), [email protected] PRESIDENT-ELECT K.J. Ray Liu
explain how they aim to transform TREASURER Mary Ellen Randall
FEATURES EDITOR Jean Kumagai, [email protected] SECRETARY Kathleen A. Kramer
the outer surfaces of spacecraft, MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] PAST PRESIDENT Toshio Fukada
space habitats, and spacesuits
into sophisticated data-gathering SENIOR ART DIRECTOR VICE PRESIDENTS
Mark Montgomery, [email protected] Stephen M. Phillips, Educational Activities; Lawrence O. Hall,
instruments [p. 30]. “I serve as a
PRODUCT MANAGER, DIGITAL Erico Guizzo, [email protected] Publication Services & Products; Maike Luiken, Member &
bridge between other technologists Geographic Activities; Roger U. Fujii, Technical Activities;
and scientists on our team, which SENIOR EDITORS James E. Matthews, President, Standards Association;
requires playing some of each role EStveapnh Aecnk Ceramssa (nS (pDeicgiiatal Pl),r oajcekcetrsm), [email protected]@ieeieee.oer.ogrg Katherine J. Duncan, President, IEEE-USA
myself,” Cherston says. Samuel K. Moore, [email protected] DIVISION DIRECTORS
Tekla S. Perry, [email protected] Alfred E. “Al” Dunlop (I); Ruth A. Dyer (II); Sergio Benedetto (III);
Philip E. Ross, [email protected] Manfred “Fred” J. Schindler (IV); Thomas M. Conte (V); Paul M.
 ALLISON MARSH David Schneider, [email protected] Cunningham (VI); Miriam P. Sanders (VII); Christina M. Schober
Eliza Strickland, [email protected] (VIII); Rabab Kreidieh Ward (IX); Dalma Novak (X)
Each month, Marsh, an associate NEWS MANAGER Mark Anderson, [email protected]
professor of history at the ASSOCIATE EDITORS REGION DIRECTORS
University of South Carolina, WMiicllihea Del. JKoonzeiosl ,( Dmig.kiotazli)o, [email protected]@rgieee.org EAdsuumaraddoo F (. 4P)a; lJaacmioe (s1 )R; .B Laorroyk C(5. )T; i lTtoimn (o2t)h;y J iTll. IL. eGeo s(6ti)n; J(a3s);o Jno Jhiannsojunn A .
features a different object in Past THE INSTITUTE Gu (7); Antonio Luque (8); Alberto Sanchez (9); Deepak Mathur (10)
Forward that helps shed light on EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kathy Pretz, [email protected]
our shared past. This issue’s object ASSISTANT EDITOR Joanna Goodrich, [email protected] DIRECTOR EMERITUS Theodore W. Hissey
[p. 76] is literally illuminating: a SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine, [email protected]
IEEE STAFF
1925 Christmas bulb shaped like COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon, [email protected] EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & COO Stephen Welby
EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner, [email protected]
a doll’s head. Marsh chose it to [phone], [email protected]
explore the history of Christmas CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Robert N. Charette, S teven C herry, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Cherif Amirat
Charles Q. Choi, Peter Fairley, Maria Gallucci, W. Wayt Gibbs, [phone], [email protected]
lights “because it’s so creepy,” Mark Harris, Jeremy Hsu, Allison Marsh, Prachi Patel, Megan Scudellari, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Karen L. Hawkins
she says. Lawrence Ulrich, Emily Waltz [phone], [email protected]
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Ramona L. Foster, [email protected] PUBLICATIONS Steven Heffner
[phone], [email protected]
 BORIS KOVATCHEV ART & PRODUCTION CORPORATE ACTIVITIES Donna Hourican
DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR Brandon Palacio, [email protected] [phone], [email protected]
Inspired by his father’s lifelong PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Randi Klett, [email protected] MEMBER & GEOGRAPHIC ACTIVITIES Cecelia Jankowski
ONLINE ART DIRECTOR Erik Vrielink, [email protected] [phone], [email protected]
struggle with diabetes, Kovatchev, DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES STANDARDS ACTIVITIES Konstantinos Karachalios
director of the University of Peter Tuohy [phone], [email protected]
Virginia’s Center for Diabetes MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Michael Spector EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES Jamie Moesch
Technology, used his skills as a ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR, PUBLICATIONS Gail A. Schnitzer [phone], [email protected]
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION [phone] GENERAL COUNSEL & CHIEF COMPLIANCE OFFICER
mathematician to model how the ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Sophia A. Muirhead [phone], [email protected]
body governs the concentration Felicia Spagnoli, [email protected] CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Thomas R. Siegert
of glucose in the bloodstream. SENIOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR [phone], [email protected]
That work led to the advent of a Nicole Evans Gyimah, [email protected] TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES Mary Ward-Callan
[phone], [email protected]
functioning artificial pancreas, now EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD, IEEE SPECTRUM MANAGING DIRECTOR, IEEE-USA Chris Brantley
used by millions and described by Susan Hassler, Chair; David C. Brock, Robert N. Charette, [phone], [email protected]
Ronald F. DeMara, Shahin Farshchi, Lawrence O. Hall,
Kovatchev and his daughter Anna Jason K. Hui, Leah Jamieson, Mary Lou Jepsen, Deepa Kundur, IEEE PUBLICATION SERVICES & PRODUCTS BOARD
on page 38. Peter Luh, M ichel Maharbiz, Somdeb Majumdar, Allison Marsh, Lawrence O. Hall, Chair; Sergio Benedetto, Edhem Custovic,
Carmen Menoni, Sofia Olhede, Wen Tong, Maurizio Vecchione Stefano Galli, James Irvine, Clem Karl, Hulya Kirkici,
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD, THE INSTITUTE Fabrizio Lombardi, Aleksandar Mastilovic, Sorel Reisman,
 GEOFFREY W. BURR Kathy Pretz, Chair; Qusi Alqarqaz, Philip Chen, Shashank Gaur, Gaurav Sharma, Isabel Trancoso, Maria Elena Valcher,
Lawrence O. Hall, Susan Hassler, Peter Luh, Cecilia Metra, Peter Winzer, Bin Zhao
Burr is an IEEE Fellow and a San Murugesan, Mirela Sechi Annoni Notare, Joel Trussell,
distinguished research staff Hon K. Tsang, Chenyang Xu IEEE OPERATIONS CENTER
member at IBM Research, in MANAGING DIRECTOR, PUBLICATIONS Steven Heffner 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331
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Haensch in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., DIRECTOR, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, reserved. © 2021 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Burr works on using analog circuits MEDIA & ADVERTISING Mark David, [email protected] Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A.
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4  SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG  DECEMBER 2021
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THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND SCIENCE DECEMBER 2021
When wireless researchers
or telecom companies talk
about future sixth-genera-
tion (6G) networks, they’re
talking mostly about their best guesses
and wish lists. There are as yet no widely
agreed upon technical standards outlin-
ing 6G’s frequencies, signal modulations,
and waveforms. And yet the economic
and political forces that will define 6G
are already in play.
And here’s the biggest wrinkle: Because
there are no major U.S. manufacturers of
cellular infrastructure equipment, the
United States may not have the superpow-
ers it thinks it does in shaping the future
course of wireless communications.
While many U.S. tech giants will surely
be involved in 6G standards development,
none of those companies make the equip-
ment that will comprise the network.
Companies like Ericsson (Sweden),
Nokia (Finland), Samsung (South Korea),
and Huawei (China) build the radio units,
baseband units, and other hardware and
software that go into cell towers and the
wired networks that connect them.
As one example, equipment manu-
facturers (such as China’s Huawei and
ZTE) will probably push for standards
that prioritize the distance a signal can
travel, while minimizing the interference
it experiences along the way. Meanwhile,
device makers (like U.S. heavyweights
Apple and Alphabet) will have more stake
in standardizing signal modulations that
TELECOMMUNICATIONS drain their gadgets’ batteries the least.
How such squabbles might be
Geopolitics Is Already resolved, of course, is still an open ques-
tion. But now is arguably the best time to
Shaping 6G Power begin asking it.
6G is—and isn’t yet—around the corner.
struggles and clashing
When the Global Communications Con-
ference (Globecom) begins in Madrid this
infrastructure priorities will December, attending researchers and
telecom executives will find it features
forge next-gen networks no fewer than five workshops devoted
to 6G development. Compare that to
the 2020 iteration of the IEEE Commu-
nication Society’s annual conference,
BY MICHAEL KOZIOL which—pandemic not w ithstanding—
6  SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG  DECEMBER 2021 Photo-illustration by Edmon de Haro
THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND SCIENCE DECEMBER 2021
included nothing 6G related beyond a 5G and its ments on, or prohibits, importing and
4-hour summit on the topic. And if you exporting items. Sources that IEEE
predecessors have
step back one year further to Globecom Spectrum spoke to noted how the
2019, you’ll find that 6G was limited to a move increased tensions in the wireless
been successful
single technical talk. industry, echoing concerns from 2019.
Cellular standards are developed and because they’ve “We are already seeing the balkaniza-
overseen by a global cellular industry tion of technology in many domains.
been universally
consortium, the 3rd Generation Part- If this trend continues, companies
nership Project (3GPP). Past wireless will have to create different products
implemented. 6G
generations coalesced around univer- for different markets, leading to even
sally agreed-upon standards relatively still has time to further divergence,” Zvika Krieger, the
smoothly. But early research into 6G is head of technology policy at the World
emerging in a more tense geopolitical congeal—or not. Economic Forum told MIT Technology
environment, and the quibbles that arose Review at the time of the ban. The move
during 5G’s standardization could blos- curtailed the success Huawei originally
som into more serious disagreements saw from its 5G standards wins, with
this time around. In 2016, as the standards were being the rotating chairman, Eric Xu, recently
At the moment, says Mehdi Bennis, a sorted out for 5G, a clash emerged in saying that the company’s cellphone
professor of wireless communications at trying to decide what error-correcting revenue will drop by US $30 billion to
the University of Oulu, in Finland, home technique would be used for wireless sig- $40 billion this year from a reported
of the 6G Flagship research initiative, the nals. Qualcomm, based in San Diego, and $136.7 billion in 2020.
next generation of wireless standards is other companies pushed for low-density As fundamental research continues
quite open ended. “Nobody has a clear parity checks (LDPC), which had been into what technologies and techniques
idea. We maybe have some pointers.” first described decades earlier but had will be implemented in 6G, it’s too early
To date, 6G has been discussed in yet to materialize commercially. Huawei, to say what the next generation’s version
terms of applications (including autono- backed by other Chinese companies, of polar codes will be, if any. But already,
mous vehicles and holographic displays) pushed for a new technique in which it different priorities are emerging in the
and research interests—such as terahertz had invested a significant amount of time values that companies and governments
waves and spectrum sharing. So for the and energy called polar codes. A dead- in different parts of the world want to see
next few years, whenever a so-called “6G lock at the 3GPP meeting that November enshrined in any standards to come.
satellite” is launched, for example, take it resulted in a split standard: LDPC would “There are some unique, or at least
with a grain of salt: It just means someone be used for radio channels that send user stronger, views on things like personal
is testing technologies that may make their data, while polar codes would be used for liberty, data security, and privacy in
way into the 6G standards down the line. channels that coordinated those user- Europe, and if we wish our new technol-
But such tests, although easily over- data channels. ogies to support those views, it needs to
hyped and used to set precedents and That Huawei managed to take polar be baked into the technology,” said Colin
score points, are still important. The codes from a relatively unknown math- Willcock, the chairman of the board for
reason each generation of wireless—2G, ematical theory and almost single-hand- the Europe-based 6G Smart Networks
3G, 4G, and now 5G—has been so suc- edly develop it into a key component of and Services Industry Association,
cessful is because each has been defined 5G led to some proclamations that the speaking at the Brooklyn 6G Summit
by standards that have been universally company (and by extension, China) was in October. Bennis agrees: “In Europe,
implemented. In other words, a network winning the battle for 5G development. we’re very keen on privacy, that’s a big,
operator in the United States like AT&T The implicit losers were Europe and the big, I mean, big requirement.” Bennis
can buy equipment from Swedish manu- United States. The incident made at least notes that privacy is being built into
facturer Ericsson to build its cellular net- one thing abundantly clear: There is a lot 5G “a posteriori” as researchers tack
work, and everything will function with of money, prestige, and influence in the it onto the established standards. The
phones made in China because they’re offing for a company that gets the tech European Union has previously passed
drawing on the same set of agreed-upon it’s been championing into the standards. laws protecting personal data and pri-
standards. (Unfortunately however, vacy such as the General Data Protec-
you’ll still run into problems if you try to In May 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Indus- tion Regulation (GDPR).
mix and match infrastructure equipment try and Security added Huawei to its So how will concepts like privacy,
from different manufacturers.) Entity List—which places require- security, or sustainability be embedded
DECEMBER 2021  SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG  7
NEWS
in 6G—if at all? For instance, one future
version of 6G could include differential
privacy, in which data-set patterns are
shared without sharing individual data
points. Or it could include federated
learning, a machine learning technique
that instead of being trained on a central-
ized data set uses one scattered across
multiple locations—thereby effectively
anonymizing information that malicious
actors in a network might otherwise put
to nefarious purposes. These techniques
are already being implemented in 5G
networks by researchers, but integrat-
ing them into 6G standards would give
them more weight.
The Washington, D.C.–based Alli-
ance for Telecommunications Industry
Solutions launched the Next G Alliance
in October 2020 to strengthen U.S.
technological leadership in 6G over the
course of the next decade. Mike Naw-
rocki, the alliance’s managing director,
says the alliance is taking a “holistic”
approach to 6G’s development. “We’re
really trying to look at it from the per-
spective of what are some of the big SPACE
societal drivers that we would envision
for the end of the decade,” Nawrocki Jupiter’s Electric Blanket
says, citing as one example the need to
connect industries previously uncon- Auroras explain why the
cerned with the wireless industry such
as health care and agriculture.
gas giant is so hot
If different regions—the United
States, Europe, China, Japan, South
Korea, and so on—find themselves
at loggerheads about how to define
certain standards or support incom- BY NED POTTER
patible policies about the implementa-
tions or applications of 6G networks,
global standards could ultimately, in For all its other problems, et’s upper atmosphere should be
a worst-case scenario, disintegrate. Earth is lucky. Warmed about -70 °C.
Different countries could decide it’s mostly by the sun, 150 mil- Instead, it exceeds 400 °C in
easier to go it alone and develop their lion kilometers away, places. Scientists have sometimes
own 6G technologies without global shielded by a magnetosphere and a spoken of Jupiter as having an
A
cooperation. This would result in bal- thin but protective atmosphere, “energy crisis.” Now, an international AS
N
kanized wireless technologies around Earth has a surface temperature team led by James O’Donoghue of A/
S
the world. Smartphone users in China that averages 14 °C—a good JAXA, the Japanese space agency, /E
R
might find their phones unable to con- number to support liquid oceans says they’ve found an answer. TE
S
nect with any other wireless network and a riot of carbon-based life. Jupiter’s polar auroras are the CE
I
outside their country’s borders. Or, for Jupiter is a different story. Its largest and most powerful known LE

instance, AT&T might, in such a sce- upper atmosphere (Jupiter has no in the solar system—and O’Dono- OF

nario, no longer buy equipment from solid surface) has a temperature ghue says the energy in them, TY
I
Nokia because it’s incompatible with closer to what you’d find on Venus caused as Jupiter’s atmosphere is RS
E
AT&T ’s network operations. than on some of Jupiter’s own moons. buffeted by solar wind, is strong IV
N
U
Although that’s a dire outcome, the Jupiter is 778 million km from enough to heat the outer atmo- /
S
L
industry consensus is that it’s not likely the sun, where sunlight is less sphere of the entire planet. O
H
C
yet—but certainly more plausible than than 4 percent as intense as it is “The auroral power...is actually I
N

for any other wireless generation. n on Earth. By all rights, the plan- 100 terawatts per hemisphere, and J.
8  SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG  DECEMBER 2021