Radiofrequency Energy Harvesting Systems for Internet of Things Applications: A Comprehensive Overview of Design Issues

Abstract

Radiofrequency energy harvesting (RF-EH) solutions have evolved significantly in recent years due to the ubiquity of electromagnetic waves in any environment. This review presents a comprehensive report on autonomous wireless sensor (WS) design considerations based on RF-EH. The obtainability of RF-EH-WS is driven by development efforts in the areas of RF-EH circuit design, known as rectifying antenna (Rectenna), the minimization of the energy budget of WS (MEB-WS), and finally, power management modules (PMM). The PMM aims to optimize the energy efficiency of the WS. In addition to these three factors, examining the RF power levels harvested related to the rectenna feeding technique (RFT) is essential. Since we did not find any review presenting a holistic view of these design considerations, we strived to provide a detailed picture of recent advances and new enhancements in this review. To address this issue, this review gives an overview of the seminal and contemporary studies in the RF-EH-WS field. The IoT issues are also discussed in terms of their basic requirement to support reduced size or miniaturized smart objects, which are common matters in current applications of WS nodes. Potential open issues that might be considered for future research are also discussed in this article. For a more detailed description of all presented concepts, many significant references are provided for the readers.

Nanomaterials and Devices for Harvesting Ambient Electromagnetic Waves

“…The harvesting of electromagnetic energy is dominated at microwaves and millimeter waves by complex circuits consisting of metallic antennas of different shapes, metallic antenna arrays, and semiconductor diodes, such as Schottky diodes and MIM diodes, attaining conversion efficiencies around 80–90%. These circuits can be used, for example, in Internet of things (IoT)-related applications requiring a multitude of tiny and low-power devices, which can be biased from rectennas replacing the batteries [ 66 ].…”

Reconfigurable Antennas for RF Energy Harvesting Application: Current Trends, Challenges, and Solutions from Design Perspective

“…In short, this particular technology will gradually play a crucial role in designing efficient systems. Although it faces so many issues, overcoming these challenges gives rise to an era of clean, green, and sustainable energy for the 5G/6G [149][150][151][152][153][154][155] applications of recent times.…”

Microstrip Patch Antenna with Multi-fins for Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting Applications

“…WSs can be installed in inaccessible places like chemical production facilities, the ocean's depths, disaster-prone areas, agricultural farms, and subterranean locations, and they have become more popular than wired sensors. Researchers have been looking into a number of energies harvesting techniques to reduce maintenance costs and enable low-power devices such as wireless sensors that are placed remotely to operate on their own since these wireless sensors' batteries must be changed frequently in order to prolong the duration of their use [2]. The impedance matching network, rectification circuit, power management unit, and receiving antenna are the main elements of the radio frequency energy harvesting system.…”