REAL LIFE NEWS: HOW TO BOOST YOUR WIFI SIGNAL WHILE STOPPING SNOOPERS
by Hazed
Anyone with a Wi-Fi router in their home will be familiar with the variable signal strength as you move from room to room. Walls and furniture can get in the way and deflect the signal so it just doesn’t reach all corners.
Even more frustrating: the signal beams out with full strength to the pavement outside, leaving you open to passers-by snooping on your network.
But help is at hand, because researchers from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, have come up with a solution that ensures your Wi-Fi signal will reach as far as you want it to – and no further.
They have developed customised reflectors that can control the shape of the Wi-Fi signal that comes from the router with great precision. Unlike repeaters, that merely boost the signal, this new tech can also reduce the signal in certain directions – for example next to windows where snoopers might lurk.
Xia Zhou, who lead the research, came up with the idea when she had problems with her own Wi-Fi. She found instructions online for boosting Wi-Fi signals by fashioning reflectors from cut-up aluminium drinks cans and wrapping them around the router’s antenna. But she and her colleagues thought they could improve on this DIY solution.
They designed an algorithm that calculates the ideal shape for a reflector based on the user’s specification. You upload a rough 3D model of your home to the software, and tell it where the router is, where you want the signal boosted, and where it should be reduced. The algorithm works out the optimal shape for a reflector, which can then be 3D printed.
Zhou’s prototype reflectors were printed in plastic and then wrapped in kitchen foil which made them reflective to the radio waves. She explained, Since we compute the reflector shape by taking into account the environment, such as where the walls are, we can bounce the signals in a way that mitigates the impact of building insulations, partitions, and interior layout.”
The reflectors were able to boost the Wi-Fi signal by up to 55% in some areas, while reducing it by up to 63% in others.
Now the team is working on making the software more user-friendly so it can be used by non-scientists, and so the output can be sent to online 3D printing services to print out the reflectors.
