An Inkjet-Printed Solar-Powered Wireless Beacon on Paper for Identification and Wireless Power Transmission Applications

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the design of an 800-MHz solar-powered active wireless beacon composed of an antenna and an integrated oscillator on a low-cost paper substrate. Inkjet printing is used to fabricate the conductive circuit traces and the folded slot antenna, while the oscillator circuit is designed using off-the-shelf components mounted on the paper substrate. Flexible, low-cost, amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells are placed on top of the slot ground and provide autonomous operation of the active circuit eliminating the use of a battery. A prototype is built and characterized in terms of phase noise, radiation patterns, and the effect of solar irradiance. Such low-cost flexible circuits can find significant applications as beacon generator circuits for real-time identification and position purposes, wearable biomonitoring as well as solar-to-wireless power transfer topologies. The measured phase noise is 116 dBc Hz at 1-MHz offset, while drain current is 4 mA and supply voltage is 1.8 V.

Mobile energy sharing futures

“…Energy harvesting or scavenging solutions, where energy is reclaimed from our ambient environment, can help to prolong battery life but typically generate limited amounts of energy. For example a wearable solar cell produces between 16.2 to 28.6 mW in direct sunlight luminance [2]. In contrast a typical mobile phone battery stores 19,980 J of energy (3.7V, 1500mAH), so the 28.6mW solar cell would take 194 hours to completely charge the phone battery.…”

Inkjet printed epidermal RFID tags

“…These tags have different applications from the conventional item identification purpose to more complex uses [4]. There have also been works on inkjet printing of tags on porous materials (paper, cardboard, leather and wood) that have been reported by different researchers [2], [5]- [10]. The sintering technique and other parameters of these works have been summarized in Table I.…”

Impact of Commuincation on Internet of Things for Human Mind and Wireless Sensors Using Powerful Technology (Smt/Rfid)

“…Cellulose, in fact, is a natural polymer very abundant on Earth, biodegradable, available at very low cost and for which there is already an established production chain. Using these materials, a number of building blocks widely used in communication and sensing electronic hardware have already been demonstrated, among them: antennas [4], oscillators [5], accelerometers [6], RIFD tags [7], energy harvesting systems [8] and devices like organic semiconductor MOS transistors [9,10]. Figure 1 illustrates the basic building blocks of three different communication systems, namely: a super-heterodyne receiver, a harmonic RFID tag and a Doppler radar sensor.…”