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Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT)

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2022) | Viewed by 36899
Please contact the Guest Editor or the Section Managing Editor at ([email protected]) for any queries.

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Oktay Cetinkaya

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Guest Editor

Oxford e-Research Centre, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, 7 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QG, UK
Interests: energy harvesting; wireless power transfer; SWIPT; energy/power-neutral systems; wireless-powered networks; Internet of Things

Dr. Ergin Dinc

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Battcock Centre for Experimental Astrophysics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
Interests: channel modelling; massive MIMO; signal processing; Internet of Things; wireless power transfer; energy harvesting
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Internet of Things (IoT) envisions billions of connected devices for the seamless interconnection of cyber and physical worlds. These devices, however, rely on limited-capacity batteries, which have been a major bottleneck in practical IoT deployments. To tackle this problem, research has been focused on promising alternatives, such as energy harvesting (EH), wireless power transfer (WPT), and energy-efficient/low-power communication and computation techniques. In theory, EH offers unlimited energy by converting ambient resources into utilizable electricity, while WPT obviates the need for batteries by delivering the required energy remotely. The combination of both, underpinned by enabling technologies, is crucial to achieving battery-less operations, thereby helping IoT to reach its full potential.

This forthcoming Special Issue invites technical publications covering any topic around EH, WPT, and related techniques towards tackling the battery-related bottlenecks in the IoT domain. High-quality surveys and position papers with preliminary results are also welcomed. We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Oktay Cetinkaya
Dr. Ergin Dinc
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Energy harvesting-aided Internet of Things
Wireless-powered communications
Intermittent/transient communications in the Internet of Things
Energy/power-neutral system design
Novel multi-source/hybrid energy harvesting techniques
Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer for the Internet of Things
Self-sustaining/energy-autonomous sensor/node and network design
Resource allocation, power management, and throughput optimization
Sensor systems and networks based on low-power communications
Wake-up radios, rectennas, and battery-less devices
Low-power and energy-aware communication techniques
Quality-of-service provisioning for the battery-less Internet of Things
MAC and routing protocols for the battery-less Internet of Things
Prototypes and testbeds powered by energy harvesting and wireless power transfer

Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

12 pages, 2961 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Battery-Free Wireless Light-Sensing Tag Based on a Long-Range Dual-Port Dual-Polarized RFID Platform

by Mahmoud Wagih, Alex S. Weddell and Steve Beeby

Sensors 2022, 22(13), 4782; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22134782 - 24 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2736

Abstract

Radio frequency identification (RFID) represents an emerging platform for passive RF-powered wireless sensing. Differential Multi-port RFID systems are widely used to enable multiple independent measurands to be gathered, or to overcome channel variations. This paper presents a dual-port/dual-integrated circuit (IC) RFID sensing tag based on a shared aperture dual-polarized microstrip antenna. The tag can be loaded with different sensors where the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of one IC is modulated using a sensor, and the other acts as a measurand-insensitive reference, for differential sensing. The 868 MHz tag maintains a minimum unloaded read range of 14 m insensitive to deployment on metals or lossy objects, which represents the longest reported range of a multi-port RFID sensing tag. The tag is loaded with a light-dependent resistor (LDR) to demonstrate its functionality as a battery-less wireless RFID light sensor. Following detailed RF characterization of the LDR, it is shown that the impedance, and consequently the RSSI, of the sensing tag are modulated by changing the light intensity, whereas the reference port maintains a mostly unchanged response for a correlated channel. The proposed tag shows the potential for channel variations-tolerant differential RFID sensing platforms based on polarization-diversity antennas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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18 pages, 9972 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Multifunctional Battery-Free Bluetooth Low Energy Wireless Sensor Node Remotely Powered by Electromagnetic Wireless Power Transfer in Far-Field

by Alassane Sidibe, Gaël Loubet, Alexandru Takacs and Daniela Dragomirescu

Sensors 2022, 22(11), 4054; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22114054 - 27 May 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2991

Abstract

This paper presents a multifunctional battery-free wireless sensing node (SN) designed to monitor physical parameters (e.g., temperature, humidity and resistivity) of reinforced concrete. The SN, which is intended to be embedded into a concrete cavity, is autonomous and can be wirelessly powered thanks to the wireless power transmission technique. Once enough energy is stored in a capacitor, the active components (sensor and transceiver) are supplied with the harvested power. The data from the sensor are then wirelessly transmitted via the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology in broadcasting mode to a device configured as an observer. The feature of energy harvesting (EH) is achieved thanks to an RF-to-DC converter (a rectifier) optimized for a low power input level. It is based on a voltage doubler topology with SMS7630-005LF Schottky diode optimized at −15 dBm input power and a load of 10 kΩ. The harvested DC power is then managed and boosted by a power management unit (PMU). The proposed system has the advantage of presenting two different power management units (PMUs) and two rectifiers working in different European Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency bands (868 MHz and 2.45 GHz) depending on the available power density. The PMU interfaces a storage capacitor to store the harvested power and then power the active components of the sensing node. The low power digital sensor HD2080 is selected to provide accurate humidity and temperature measurements. Resistivity measurement (not reported in this paper) can also be achieved through a current injection on the concrete probes. For wireless communications, the QN9080 system-on-chip (SoC) was chosen as a BLE transceiver thanks to its attractive features: a small package size and extremely low power consumption. For low power consumption, the SN is configured in broadcasting mode. The measured power consumption of the SN in a deep-sleep mode is 946 µJ for four advertising events (spaced at 250 ms maximum) after the functioning of sensors. It also includes voltage offset cancelling functionality for resistivity measurement. Far-field measurement operated in an anechoic chamber with the most efficient PMU (AEM30940) gives a first charging time of 48 s (with an empty capacitor) and recharge duration of 27 s for a complete measurement and data transmission cycle. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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32 pages, 676 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Enabling Energy Harvesting-Based Wi-Fi System for an e-Health Application: A MAC Layer Perspective

by Golshan Famitafreshi, Muhammad Shahwaiz Afaqui and Joan Melià-Seguí

Sensors 2022, 22(10), 3831; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22103831 - 18 May 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2336

Abstract

The adverse impacts of using conventional batteries in the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as cost-effective maintenance, numerous battery replacements, and environmental hazards, have led to an interest in integrating energy harvesting technology into IoT devices to extend their lifetime and sustainably effectively. However, this requires improvements in different IoT protocol stack layers, especially in the MAC layer, due to its high level of energy consumption. These improvements are essential in critical applications such as IoT medical devices. In this paper, we simulated a dense solar-based energy harvesting Wi-Fi network in an e-Health environment, introducing a new algorithm for energy consumption mitigation while maintaining the required Quality of Service (QoS) for e-Health. In compliance with the upcoming Wi-Fi amendment 802.11be, the Access Point (AP) coordination-based optimization technique is proposed, where an AP can request dynamic resource rescheduling along with its nearby APs, to reduce the network energy consumption through adjustments within the standard MAC protocol. This paper shows that the proposed algorithm, alongside using solar energy harvesting technology, increases the energy efficiency by more than 40% while maintaining the e-Health QoS requirements. We believe this research will open new opportunities in IoT energy harvesting integration, especially in QoS-restricted environments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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15 pages, 507 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On-Demand Energy Transfer and Energy-Aware Polling-Based MAC for Wireless Powered Sensor Networks

by Mingfu Li, Ching-Chieh Fang and Huei-Wen Ferng

Sensors 2022, 22(7), 2476; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22072476 - 23 Mar 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2002

Abstract

To improve the performance of the wireless powered sensor network (WPSN), this paper proposes a frequency division duplex (FDD)-based on-demand energy transfer protocol and an energy-aware polling-based medium access control (MAC) protocol, called composite energy and data first (CEDF), by using the numbers of data packets and energy packets to determine polling priorities. The performance of the proposed MAC protocol, i.e., CEDF, along with the on-demand energy transfer protocol was evaluated through simulations, with comparison to the closely related protocols such as the round robin (RR) and data first (DF) polling protocols. Compared with RR and DF, our proposed CEDF performs much better in terms of throughput, data packet loss rate, and delay. Additionally, the doubly near–far problem in WPSNs under our proposed on-demand energy transfer protocol and CEDF was investigated to come up with good solutions to alleviate such a problem. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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13 pages, 5704 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A 900 MHz, Wide-Input Range, High-Efficiency, Differential CMOS Rectifier for Ambient Wireless Powering

by Abdulaziz Alhoshany

Sensors 2022, 22(3), 974; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22030974 - 27 Jan 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2039

Abstract

This paper presents a wide dynamic-range CMOS rectifier with high efficiency and high sensitivity for RF energy harvesting. A new adaptive-biasing scheme is implemented using stacking diodes with dynamic threshold voltage to mitigate the reverse-leakage current of the NMOS rectifying devices at high RF power levels. The proposed design employs the adaptive-biasing technique to control the conduction of the PMOS rectifying devices with self-bulk biasing of the feedback diodes to minimize the leakage current. The proposed novel techniques extend the dynamic range of the RF-to-DC power converter with high efficiency, which is 17 times better than a conventional cross-coupled rectifier. The prototype is implemented using a standard 65 nm CMOS technology and occupies a 0.0093 mm² active area. The proposed design achieves a peak power conversion efficiency (peak PCE) of 73%, −18.8 dBm 1-V sensitivity, and a superb dynamic range of 17.3 dB with efficiency greater than 80% of its peak PCE, which outperforms the state-of-the-art RF CMOS rectifiers, when operating at UHF 900 MHz with a 100-KΩ load. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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12 pages, 453 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Neighbor-Aware Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access Scheme for Energy Harvesting Internet of Things

by Yumi Kim, Mincheol Paik, Bokyeong Kim, Haneul Ko and Seung-Yeon Kim

Sensors 2022, 22(2), 448; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22020448 - 07 Jan 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1250

Abstract

In a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) environment, an Internet of Things (IoT) device achieves a high data rate by increasing its transmission power. However, excessively high transmission power can cause an energy outage of an IoT device and have a detrimental effect on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio of neighbor IoT devices. In this paper, we propose a neighbor-aware NOMA scheme (NA-NOMA) where each IoT device determines whether to transmit data to the base station and the transmission power at each time epoch in a distributed manner with the consideration of its energy level and other devices’ transmission powers. To maximize the aggregated data rate of IoT devices while keeping an acceptable average energy outage probability, a constrained stochastic game model is formulated, and the solution of the model is obtained using a best response dynamics-based algorithm. Evaluation results show that NA-NOMA can increase the average data rate up to

22 %

compared with a probability-based scheme while providing a sufficiently low energy outage probability (e.g.,

0.05

). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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12 pages, 3691 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Dual-Band Wide-Input-Range Adaptive CMOS RF–DC Converter for Ambient RF Energy Harvesting

by Bo-Ram Heo and Ickjin Kwon

Sensors 2021, 21(22), 7483; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21227483 - 10 Nov 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2056

Abstract

In this paper, a dual-band wide-input-range adaptive radio frequency-to-direct current (RF–DC) converter operating in the 0.9 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands is proposed for ambient RF energy harvesting. The proposed dual-band RF–DC converter adopts a dual-band impedance-matching network to harvest RF energy from multiple frequency bands. To solve the problem consisting in the great degradation of the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of a multi-band rectifier according to the RF input power range because the available RF input power range is different according to the frequency band, the proposed dual-band RF rectifier adopts an adaptive configuration that changes the operation mode so that the number of stages is optimized. Since the optimum peak PCE can be obtained according to the RF input power, the PCE can be increased over a wide RF input power range of multiple bands. When dual-band RF input powers of 0.9 GHz and 2.4 GHz were applied, a peak PCE of 67.1% at an input power of −12 dBm and a peak PCE of 62.9% at an input power of −19 dBm were achieved. The input sensitivity to obtain an output voltage of 1 V was −17 dBm, and the RF input power range with a PCE greater than 20% was 21 dB. The proposed design achieved the highest peak PCE and the widest RF input power range compared with previously reported CMOS multi-band rectifiers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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Review

Jump to: Research

30 pages, 5196 KiB

Open AccessReview

Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting Technologies: A Comprehensive Review on Designing, Methodologies, and Potential Applications

by Husam Hamid Ibrahim, Mandeep Jit Singh, Samir Salem Al-Bawri, Sura Khalil Ibrahim, Mohammad Tariqul Islam, Ahmed Alzamil and Md Shabiul Islam

Sensors 2022, 22(11), 4144; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22114144 - 30 May 2022

Cited by 32 | Viewed by 12611

Abstract

Radio frequency energy harvesting (RF-EH) is a potential technology via the generation of electromagnetic waves. This advanced technology offers the supply of wireless power that is applicable for battery-free devices, which makes it a prospective alternative energy source for future applications. In addition to the dynamic energy recharging of wireless devices and a wide range of environmentally friendly energy source options, the emergence of the RF-EH technology is advantageous in facilitating various applications that require quality of service. This review highlights the abundant source of RF-EH from the surroundings sources, including nearby mobile phones, Wi-Fi, wireless local area network, broadcast television signal or DTS, and FM/AM radio signals. In contrast, the energy is captured by a receiving antenna and rectified into a working direct current voltage. This review also summarizes the power of RF-EH technology, which would provide a guideline for developing RF-EH units. The energy harvesting circuits depend on cutting-edge electrical technology to achieve significant efficiency, given that they are built to perform with considerably small current and voltage. Hence, the review includes a thorough analysis and discussion of various RF designs and their pros and cons. Finally, the latest applications of RF-EH are presented. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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36 pages, 672 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Comprehensive Survey on RF Energy Harvesting: Applications and Performance Determinants

by Hafiz Husnain Raza Sherazi, Dimitrios Zorbas and Brendan O’Flynn

Sensors 2022, 22(8), 2990; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22082990 - 13 Apr 2022

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 5858

Abstract

There has been an explosion in research focused on Internet of Things (IoT) devices in recent years, with a broad range of use cases in different domains ranging from industrial automation to business analytics. Being battery-powered, these small devices are expected to last for extended periods (i.e., in some instances up to tens of years) to ensure network longevity and data streams with the required temporal and spatial granularity. It becomes even more critical when IoT devices are installed within a harsh environment where battery replacement/charging is both costly and labour intensive. Recent developments in the energy harvesting paradigm have significantly contributed towards mitigating this critical energy issue by incorporating the renewable energy potentially available within any environment in which a sensor network is deployed. Radio Frequency (RF) energy harvesting is one of the promising approaches being investigated in the research community to address this challenge, conducted by harvesting energy from the incident radio waves from both ambient and dedicated radio sources. A limited number of studies are available covering the state of the art related to specific research topics in this space, but there is a gap in the consolidation of domain knowledge associated with the factors influencing the performance of RF power harvesting systems. Moreover, a number of topics and research challenges affecting the performance of RF harvesting systems are still unreported, which deserve special attention. To this end, this article starts by providing an overview of the different application domains of RF power harvesting outlining their performance requirements and summarizing the RF power harvesting techniques with their associated power densities. It then comprehensively surveys the available literature on the horizons that affect the performance of RF energy harvesting, taking into account the evaluation metrics, power propagation models, rectenna architectures, and MAC protocols for RF energy harvesting. Finally, it summarizes the available literature associated with RF powered networks and highlights the limitations, challenges, and future research directions by synthesizing the research efforts in the field of RF energy harvesting to progress research in this area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things (IoT))

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