17 GHz RF Front-Ends for Low-Power Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Abstract-A 17 GHz low-power radio transceiver front-end implemented in a 0.25 m SiGe:C BiCMOS technology is described. Operating at data rates up to 10 Mbit/s with a reduced transceiver turn-on time of 2 s, gives an overall energy consumption of 1.75 nJ/bit for the receiver and 1.6 nJ/bit for the transmitter. The measured conversion gain of the receiver chain is 25-30 dB into a 50 load at 10 MHz IF, and noise figure is 12 0.5 dB across the band from 10 to 200 MHz. The 1-dB compression point at the receiver input is 37 dBm and IIP 3 is 25 dBm. The maximum saturated output power from the on-chip transmit amplifier is 1.4 dBm. Power consumption is 17.5 mW in receiver mode, and 16 mW in transmit mode, both operating from a 2.5 V supply. In standby, the transceiver supply current is less than 1 A.Index Terms-BAW resonator, energy/bit, energy efficiency, low-power radio, radio transceiver front-end, SiGe BiCMOS technology, wireless sensor networks.

Cluster size optimization in sensor networks with decentralized cluster-based protocols

“…When a high output power is supported, the transmitter is likely to dominate due to energy dissipated by power amplifier. When regulatory limits are tight, as in ultra-wideband systems, the receiver, owing to its more complex signal conditioning and processing, dominates the transmit energy [44]. Further explanations regarding the wireless protocols and corresponding parameters (e.g., data rate) that each of the above motes exploits, are omitted due to space limitations.…”

“…utilizing a more practical radio energy model [44], [45] in place of the first-order radio energy model,…”

17GHz RF Front-Ends for Low-Power Wireless Sensor Networks

“…The direct conversion receiver performs channel selection at baseband, thereby eliminating multiple stages of frequency conversion and intermediate frequency filtering and gain stages. This can result in lower power operation, less chip area and the potential for higher integration of the transceiver in a monolithic implementation [17]- [19].…”

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“…In order to improve it, a lot of efforts have been put to reduce operating power of the sensor nodes, either by optimizing the transmission scheduling i.e. by logging and/or averaging the data first, rather than frequently transmitting it [1], or by designing an efficient low-power radio front-end [2], [3], and by lowering the sampling frequency and using efficient sleep modes in between samples [4].…”