RF-Powered Wireless Sensors

Powercast demos prelude to mobile network RF energy harvester
Directed RF energy harvester demo is stepping stone to full ambient RF harvesters that can siphon energy from ubiquitous mobile networks

“After setting up an RF energy-harvesting demo at this week’s Sensors Expo collocated with ESC Chicago, Powercast’s director of marketing Harry Ostaffe presented a paper that outlined the concepts and paths to what he believes to be the endgame: full ambient RF harvesting capabilities that sip power from ubiquitous mobile networks and eliminate batteries and direct RF power sources completely.”  Read more…

Powercast presentation - Power Out of Thin Air (PDF)

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Powercast will participate as an exhibitor at the 2010 Sensors Expo & Conference.  At the event Power will be demonstrating a battery-free wireless sensor module powered by RF energy and designed for ultra-low power consumption.  The sensor module provides temperature and humidity data to an access point along with the received signal strength (RSSI) and the ID number of the Powercaster™ transmitter from which it is receiving power.

Powercast has recently released the P1110 and P2110 Powerharvester™ Receivers which are capable of converting radio waves in the range of 850-950 MHz into DC power.  The demonstration sensor module uses the P2110 Powerharvester receiver to store the received energy into a capacitor, and then performs a voltage boost to supply the module components will a regulated voltage.  Both the P1110 and P2110 enable a microcontroller to determine the signal strength of the received power, as well as to recover low-rate data encoded in the power broadcasted from the power transmitter.

Harry Ostaffe, Director of Marketing and Business Development for Powercast, will also be delivering two presentations during the event.  During the pre-conference symposium on June 7, 2010 he will speak on “Design Techniques for RF Energy Harvesting Devices”, and during the main conference on June 8, 2010 he will also present “Power Out of Thin Air: Ambient RF Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensors”.

Powercast’s exhibit and wireless sensor demonstration will be located at Booth 1022 in the exhibition hall.

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The P21110 Powerharvester receiver  has some great new features for power management in addition to RF Energy Harvesting.  A battery-free wireless sensor node (shown below) has been designed to demonstrate the improved performance capabilities of the P2110.

The sensor module has a P2110 Powerharvester, 50mF AVX BestCap, 3 sensors (temperature, humidity, light), a PIC24 microprocessor, and a 2.4 GHz radio module. This node was powered by a 4W EIRP, 915 MHz transmitter.  For testing purposes, an antenna was used with a linear gain of 4, or 6 dBi.  The PCB dimensions are approximately 1.5″x2.5″.

When a charge threshold of 1.25V is reached on the supercap, the DC output is turned on to power the MCU and radio.  A quick read of the sensors is performed, the received signal strength (RSSI) from the transmitter is determined, and that data is transmitted using the MiWi P2P protocol.  The PIC24 was programmed to use the new RESET feature to turn off power as soon as the data packet was transmitted.  With the energy management implemented in this node, a significant reduction in energy consumption was achieved from a previously unoptimized, off-the-shelf sensor demo.  The transmitter also has the ability to send low-rate data, such as a transmitter ID, that can be used for location-based applications or to activate only specific end devices.

The performance at different distances is as follows:

10 feet - every second
20 feet - every 6 seconds
30 feet - every 21 seconds
40 feet - every 89 seconds

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Powercast announced the release of new RF Powerharvester receivers.  The P1110 and P2110 Powerharvester receivers offer additional functionality for power management and intelligent control.  They are designed for the 915 MHz band, but have a wide bandwidth which includes other commonly used frequencies.  The components work with any standard 50-ohm antenna.

http://www.powercastco.com

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Darnell Group has determined that the “crossover” from the “Introduction” phase to the “Growth” phase for energy harvesting and related micro battery products will take place in the 2009/10 timeframe.  Their brief news report can be read here.

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Sensors Magazine recently published the article “RF Energy Harvesting Enables Wireless Sensor Networks” by Harry Ostaffe of Powercast.  The article is a brief introduction to RF energy harvesting: what it is, what it does, and how it enables wireless sensor networking applications.

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Powercast will be demonstrating RF energy harvesting at the IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage Conference in Denver (USA) on Nov 3-4, 2009.   On display will be Powercast’s RF energy harvesting technology integrated with wireless sensors from Texas Instruments, Jennic, and EnOcean.

All of the demonstration modules are battery-free and are powered by RF energy that is converted to DC by Powercast’s P2100 Powerharvester module and stored in a supercapacitor.  Harry Ostaffe of Powercast will also be giving a presentation on Practical Applications of RF Energy Harvesting.

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Product Design & Development (PDD) magazine profiled energy harvesting in “The Brainstorm” section of their August 2009 issue.  The questions asked of the contributors were:

“What is the future of energy harvesting?  What markets will energy harvesting have the greatest impact upon?”

http://e-ditionsbyfry.com/olive/ODE/PDD/Default.aspx?href=PDD/2009/08/01

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Jennic recently announced collaborations with multiple energy harvesting companies for vibration, solar, thermal, and RF energy harvesting to power wireless sensor networks based on the IEEE802.15.4 standard such as ZigBee PRO and 6LoWPAN.   The companies involved included Micropelt, CYMBET, AdaptivEnergy, and Powercast.

Jennic’s wireless microcontrollers offer exceptionally low-current operation, and with advanced software based monitoring and control of the energy source, they are able to achieve the extreme efficiency demanded by systems powered by sustainable energy sources.

At Powercast, we used a 915 MHz radio transmitter and the P2100 Powerharvester(TM) module to power wirelessly, without batteries, the new JN5148 module which sent ID, voltage, and temperature readings back through the JN5139-based access point to a PC application.

Jimi Simpson, Jennic Product Marketing, explained, “Harvesting energy from sustainable sources presents designers with the ultimate power challenge: the energy supplied is not necessarily continuous and is available at relatively low levels. This means that every element of the design, from the sensor to the microcontroller, must be considered and managed to achieve the highest levels of power efficiency.”

Jennic press release (PDF)

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A new energy harvesting group has been created on LinkedIn - Energy Harvesting and MicroPower.

This group is for professionals and researchers focused on products, applications, and solutions based on Energy Harvesting and MicroPower systems.  Typical applications will include wireless sensors for environmental controls, building automation, condition monitoring, and energy management.  Sources for Energy Harvesting and MicroPower include solar, thermal, vibration, RF, and motion.

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