Today's Internet of Things (IoT) devices are bulky, expensive, require battery maintenance, and involve costly installation. In contrast, the interactive stickers introduced in this monograph are low maintenance, inexpensive, and easy to deploy. Focusing on power, form factor, and cost as system design parameters, the author describes stickers that have simple circuitry and can sustain themselves while wirelessly communicating and responding to various human Interactions.

This work introduces four projects. SATURN is a self-powered flexible microphone and vibration sensor based on a triboelectric generator made from inexpensive everyday materials. ZEUSSS stickers extend the SATURN microphone by leveraging simple passive circuitry to add wireless communication capability. MARS stickers improve ZEUSSS by allowing simultaneous multiple-channel communication capability for speech, swipe, and touch interactions in sub-microwatt power. Finally, VENUS adds feedback to the stickers in the form of a low-voltage display powered by the heat of a human finger or ambient light.

The device, circuit, and system innovations described in this book provide a path toward interfaces that can be sustainably instrumented on to everyday physical objects and surfaces.

Nivedita Arora
Nivedita is Breed Assistant Professor in the ECE & CS departments at Northwestern University. Her research aims to transform sustainable everyday materials and things (paper, wood, soil, plants, textiles) to have computational properties and support applications in climate change, agriculture, smart infrastructure, wildlife monitoring, and education. She calls this new area of research — ‘Sustainable Computational Materials.’
She directs the VAK Sustainable Computing Lab. VAK is short for Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, an ancient Sanskrit phrase that means ‘one world, one family, one future.’ In a world driven by performance and functionality-first technology, inspired by her values of responsible indigenous living, VAK lab re-envisions the computing stack from a sustainability-first approach for its entire life-cycle: (1) Production: eco-friendly biodegradable materials and manufacturing, (2) Use: battery-free system design and operation, (3) Disposal: responsible end-of-the-lifecycle or reuse. To create such disruptive technology, the core value of the lab is set in transdisciplinary innovation. VAK Lab is a group of fearless and purpose-driven scientists, engineers, and designers cutting across disciplines. Nivedita herself is trained in electrical engineering, computer sc, and design and traversed into materials and biology. The lab often also engages with community partners to deploy and test prototypes in real-world scenarios.

She built the first realized example of sustainable computational material — interactive stickers during her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology, advised by Gregory Abowd and Thad Starner. This work has appeared in ACM IMWUT, ACM UIST, ACM MobiSys, and NPJ Flexible Electronics. It has won two best papers (ACM IMWUT, ACM SenSys-ENSsys), two best poster awards (MobiSys, UIST), an outstanding design award (Fast Company), and research highlights in Communications of the ACM and SIGMOBILE GetMobile Magazine. It was also recognized as the best dissertation at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. She has also worked closely with Josiah Hester as a post-doctoral researcher.

For her research and service work, Nivedita has been named the winner of the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Ubicomp Student award in the ACM Ubicomp and ISWC community, Foley scholar in Georgia Tech’s GVU Center, Outstanding GRA in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, GT’s Top 10 Faces of Inclusive Excellence and MIT Rising Stars in EECS.

Ongoing Projects
Biodegradable sensor platform for remote sustainable sensing
Low/No power smart robotic textiles for rehabilitation and space junk removal
Carbon-aware interactive smart home sticky notes
Sustainable carbon-aware quantum computing