Low-Power RF Energy Harvesting for IoT Devices

A special issue of Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications (ISSN 2079-9268).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2020) | Viewed by 10200

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT3 9DT, UK
Interests: wireless sensing; Internet of Things (IoT); intelligent metasurfaces; RF energy harvesting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, 43124 Parma, Italy
Interests: electronics engineering; analog integrated circuits; CMOS; low-power analog circuits; analog circuit design; analog–digital conversion; energy harvesting; analog in-memory computing; low-power RF receivers; bandgap references
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Engineering and Architecture, Università di Parma, 43124 Parma, Italy
Interests: CMOS; microelectronics; circuit simulation; cadence; analog electronics; circuit analysis; electronics; digital electronics; VHDL programming; electrical and electronics engineering

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

An ocean of electromagnetic waves surrounds us. The number of radio frequency emitters has been rapidly increasing over the last few decades due to the development of new technologies (e.g., cellular networks, wireless sensor networks, and the Internet of Things). Countless wireless applications illuminate power to serve numerous customers. Most of this energy remains unused, since usually a client captures only a very small fraction of the transmitted power. Thus, it is an engineering challenge to capture this energy and recycle it by suppling small electrical devices, such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.

Various attempts have been made towards the development of low-power RF energy harvesting systems, since the available ambient power density level is relatively low. New high-efficiency and high-sensitivity rectenna designs have assisted this effort, while the use of the latter in rectenna arrays has augmented the DC output power. Electrically small rectennas with high radiation efficiency are leading this attempt, forming high-efficiency dense rectenna arrays. Power management systems based on maximum power point tracking techniques are developed, alongside with the rectification systems providing enhanced DC voltage output.

On the other hand, periodic surfaces using resonating unit-cells have been developed over the last few years for RF energy harvesting, exploiting the well-known properties of the frequency selective surfaces. More recently, metamaterial-inspired structures and Huygens–Fresnel principles have been used to provide even more high-efficiency and high-sensitivity RF harvesting systems for low-power input.

Authors are invited to submit regular papers following the JLPEA submission guidelines, within the remit of this Special Issue call. Topics include but are not limited to:

  • High-efficiency and high-sensitivity low-power RF energy harvesting for IoT devices;
  • Power management circuits for low-power RF energy harvesting systems;
  • RF energy harvesting surfaces for low ambient power density;
  • Metamaterial-inspired and/or Huygens-based geometries for low ambient power density;
  • Emerging technologies.

Dr. Stylianos D. Assimonis
Dr. Andrea Boni
Dr. Michele Caselli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • RF energy harvesting
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • Wireless power transfer
  • Low power
  • RF energy harvesting surfaces

Published Papers (2 papers)

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17 pages, 607 KiB  
Article
Power Management Circuits for Low-Power RF Energy Harvesters
by Michele Caselli, Marco Ronchi and Andrea Boni
J. Low Power Electron. Appl. 2020, 10(3), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/jlpea10030029 - 19 Sep 2020
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3915
Abstract
The paper describes the design and implementation of power management circuits for RF energy harvesters suitable for integration in wireless sensor nodes. In particular, we report the power management circuits used to provide the voltage supply of an integrated temperature sensor with analog-to-digital [...] Read more.
The paper describes the design and implementation of power management circuits for RF energy harvesters suitable for integration in wireless sensor nodes. In particular, we report the power management circuits used to provide the voltage supply of an integrated temperature sensor with analog-to-digital converter. A DC-DC boost converter is used to transfer efficiently the energy harvested from a generic radio-frequency rectifier into a charge reservoir, whereas a linear regulator scales the voltage supply to a suitable value for a sensing and conversion circuit. Implemented in a 65 nm CMOS technology, the power management system achieves a measured overall efficiency of 20%, with an available power of 4.5 μW at the DC-DC converter input. The system can sustain a temperature measurement rate of one sample/s with an RF input power of −28 dBm, making it compatible with the power levels available in generic outdoor environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Low-Power RF Energy Harvesting for IoT Devices)
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11 pages, 2817 KiB  
Article
Rectifiers’ Design and Optimization for a Dual-Channel RF Energy Harvester
by Davide Colaiuda, Iolanda Ulisse and Giuseppe Ferri
J. Low Power Electron. Appl. 2020, 10(2), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/jlpea10020011 - 04 Apr 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 5616
Abstract
This paper presents the design and implementation of two front-ends for RF (Radio Frequency) energy harvesting, comparing them with the commercial one—P2110 by Powercast Co. (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) Both devices are implemented on a discrete element board with microstrip lines combined with lumped [...] Read more.
This paper presents the design and implementation of two front-ends for RF (Radio Frequency) energy harvesting, comparing them with the commercial one—P2110 by Powercast Co. (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) Both devices are implemented on a discrete element board with microstrip lines combined with lumped elements and are optimized for two different input power levels (−10 dBm and 10 dBm, respectively), at the GSM900 frequencies. The load has been fixed at 5kΩ, after a load-pull analysis on systems. The rectifiers stages implement two different Schottky diodes in two different topologies: a single diode and a 2-stage Dickson’s charge pump. The second one is compared with the P2110 by generating RF fields at 915 MHz with the Powercast Powerspot. The main aim of this work is to design simple and efficient low-cost devices, which can be used as a power supply for low-power autonomous sensors, with better performances than the current solutions of state-of-the-art equipment, providing an acceptable voltage level on the load. Measurements have been conducted for input power range −20 dBm up to 10 dBm; the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) is obtained with the second design, which reaches a value of 70% at 915 MHz. In particular, the proposed device exhibited better performance compared to the P2110 commercial device, allowing a maximum distance of operation of up to 22 meters from the dedicated RF power source, making it suitable even for IoT (Internet of Things) applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Low-Power RF Energy Harvesting for IoT Devices)
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