Advanced Monitoring Systems Based on Battery-Less Asset Tracking Modules Energized through RF Wireless Power Transfer

Abstract

Asset tracking involving accurate location and transportation data is highly suited to wireless sensor networks (WSNs) featuring battery-less nodes that can be deployed in virtually any environment and require little or no maintenance. In response to the growing demand for advanced battery-less sensor tag solutions, this article presents a system for identifying and monitoring the speeds of assets in a WSN with battery-less tags that receive all their operating energy through radio frequency (RF) wireless power transfer (WPT) architecture, and a unique measurement approach to generate time-domain speed readouts. The assessment includes performance characteristics and key features of a system on chip (SoC) purposely designed to power a node through RF WPT. The result is an innovative solution for RF to DC conversion able to address the principal difficulties associated with maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) with sensitivity and vice versa, a strategy, and a design optimization model to indicate the number of readers required for reliable asset identification and speed measurement. Model validation is performed through specific tests. Experimental results demonstrating the viability of the proposed advanced monitoring system are provided.

A Self-Powered and Battery-Free Vibrational Energy to Time Converter for Wireless Vibration Monitoring

“…In some use cases, through careful design at the system level, the energy source can be used simultaneously to perform sensing or measurements with the advantage of having fewer components to power, e.g., the sensors, therefore ensuring a lower power consumption of the system and less stringent specifications relating to energy storage. One example of such a system is shown in [10], which describes a WSN for identifying and monitoring the speed of assets in a wireless sensor network with battery-less nodes combined with and a unique measurement approach to generate time-domain speed readouts. Ref.…”

“…The power P PEH generated on a load Z load when the PEH is excited by a harmonic oscillation is given by Equation (10) [59]…”

“…In this context, energy-autonomous wireless sensors (EAWSs) are a promising solution for boosting the deployment of IoT systems, as they facilitate the deployment of efficient, low-maintenance, ubiquitous, set-and-forget monitoring systems and contribute to a substantial reduction in the number of battery disposals [6]. Significant interest and research has been invested by the scientific community into battery-free solutions that exploit the energy collected from the environment through different energy sources such as solar, vibration, thermal, and radio-frequency waves, etc., in combination with small capacitors that are intermittently charged and discharged to power the WSN [7][8][9][10][11]. In automotive and avionics industries that use heavy machinery, the failure of components such as rotating shafts can cause severe damage during operation [12,13].…”

Reliable Identification Schemes for Asset and Production Tracking in Industry 4.0

“…Most BLE or purely RFID based solutions aim for power-efficiency or simplicity when compared to other ones that use coupled technologies. Although these simpler and more economical systems only provide an accuracy of 1–2 m, this is adequate for various logistics-related or other uses cases [ 38 , 39 ], especially where humans are involved in the scenario. These systems are often aided with different algorithms such as Kalman-Filter to provide a better accuracy [ 40 ], however in this case their response time becomes higher, therefore real-time systems can not be implemented this way.…”

Application of NSGA-II to Obtain the Charging Current-Time Tradeoff Curve in Battery Based Underwater Wireless Sensor Nodes

“…For instance, in the case of batteryless approaches presented in [ 5 , 6 ], the energy is provided by a WPT system to a local energy accumulator and then the measurement is executed. There also exists another common batteryless approach which does not include an energy accumulator [ 7 ].…”