Battery-less wireless sensors powered directly by miniaturized energy harvesters can be appealing only if communication between nodes is realized without wasting energy. In devices that implement intermittent computing, efficient communications remain an open challenge. Transmitters should be aware of unavailable receivers to prevent packet losses due to power failures. Backscatter transmissions can be used to propagate the energy state almost for free in the surrounding. This paper presents a backscatter radio mechanism and a protocol that regulates the communication between nodes, guaranteeing packet transmissions only if sufficient energy is stored in the transmitter and the receiver. Simulation results demonstrate our approach's effectiveness and show the performance of this new type of intermittent communication.
CCS CONCEPTS• Networks → Network simulations; • Computer systems organization → Sensor networks; • Hardware → Power and energy.
Self-sustainable energy harvesting for Internet of Things devices is challenging since ambient energy may be sporadic and unpredictable. This situation leads to frequent power failures that lead to intermittent operations, which prevent the reliability of data communications. This article presents fundamental hardware circuitry that enables reliable intermittent communications over wireless batteryless node networks. We emphasize two main mechanisms that ensure energy awareness and reliability: energy status-sharing and synchronized operation. We introduce novel low-power and self-sustainable plug-and-play circuits to support these mechanisms.
This paper presents a concrete solution for flying a lightweight drone completely without batteries. The drone can float upon a transmitting coil indefinitely and prevents from battery lifetime limitations, by exploiting a magnetic resonant coupling for wireless power transfer. We used a DC-DC converter to match the load impedance at the WPT. Finally, the overall achieved maximum efficiency is 40% measured over different distances.
Eliminating the dependency on batteries as primary energy sources boosts the Internet of Things (IoT) to scale up to billion devices. New low power communication technologies combined with new energy harvesting techniques can significantly improve the energy efficiency of IoT battery-less devices. We present a communication system based on Visible Light Communication (VLC) embedded in a lighting system that enables data transmission and energy harvesting. The transmitter is a powerful LED light source. We avoid light variation and flickering of the source while transmitting data. Moreover, we embed the receiver in a cheap and compact solution by using only a single MCU and very few external components such as small-size photovoltaic cells. Experimental results show that our approach is a viable solution for powering the IoT battery-less devices of the future.
The growing interest in ultra-low-power wireless sensors powered directly by energy harvesters has revealed one of the major drawbacks of such battery-less devices, which is engaging communication between nodes, without wasting energy due to unavailable receivers. Backscatter communication enables low-power communication by eliminating energy-hungry hardware components and can communicate if IoT devices are ready to receive even at zero-energy onboard. In this paper, we present the design of a backscatter radio mechanism that is used as a feedback channel to transmit the energy state information almost for free. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach designed according to the novel approach of "transient computing".
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