© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
The capability to efficiently harvest power from ambient energy sources is a crucial element for the development of low-maintenance wireless sensor networks. Available energy levels that can be harvested from ambient electromagnetic (EM) sources are rather low (0.1 µW/cm2). Insufficient information about the available EM energy under different working conditions results in poor design decisions, leading to a sub-optimal system design. In this study, a novel and efficient simulation methodology is developed which predicts the statistical distribution of the power harvested by an antenna when immersed in a given (statistical) EM environment. The methodology is used to quantify the impact of the antenna's orientation, location, exact geometry and so on, on the quantity of the harvested energy. The methodology is successfully applied to a realistic energy harvesting antenna in different EM environments (indoor, outdoor etc.)
References
-
-
1)
-
39. Hill, D.A.: ‘Electromagnetic theory of reverberation chambers’ (NIST, 1998).
-
2)
-
25. Nintanavongsa, P., Muncuk, U.: ‘Design optimization and implementation for RF energy harvesting circuits’, Top. Circuits, 2012, 2, pp. 24–33.
-
3)
-
28. Kragalott, M., Kluskens, M.S., Zolnick, D.A., et al: ‘A Toolset independent hybrid method for calculating antenna coupling’, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., 2011, 59, pp. 443–451 (doi: 10.1109/TAP.2010.2096403).
-
4)
-
13. Cammarano, A., Petrioli, C., Spenza, D.: ‘Pro-energy: a novel energy prediction model for solar and wind energy-harvesting wireless sensor networks’. IEEE 9th Int. Conf. on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Sensor Systems, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2012, pp. 75–83.
-
5)
-
26. Shams, R., Sadeghi, P.: ‘On optimization of finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) computation on heterogeneous and GPU clusters’, J. Parallel Distrib. Comput., 2011, 71, pp. 584–593 (doi: 10.1016/j.jpdc.2010.10.011).
-
6)
-
8. Lin, C.-S., Chuang, P.-J.: ‘Energy-efficient two-hop extension protocol for wireless body area networks’, IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2013, 3, (1), pp. 37–56 (doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2012.0070).
-
7)
-
32. Stutzman, W.L., Thiele, G.A.: ‘Antenna theory and design’ (J. Wiley, 1998).
-
8)
-
D.A. Hill
.
Plane wave integral representation for fields in reverberation chambers.
IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat.
,
3 ,
209 -
217
-
9)
-
17. Sun, Q., Patil, S., Stoute, S., Sun, N.-X., Lehman, B.: ‘Optimum design of magnetic inductive energy harvester and its AC-DC converter’. 2012 IEEE Energy Convers. Congr. Expo., 2012, pp. 394–400.
-
10)
-
11)
-
10. Yongtai, H., Lihui, L., Yanqiu, L.: ‘Design of solar photovoltaic micro-power supply for application of wireless sensor nodes in complex illumination environments’, IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2012, 2, pp. 16–21 (doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2011.0078).
-
12)
-
9. Nikolov, D., Manolov, E., Hristov, M., et al: ‘Architecture of energy harvesting devices’, Annu. J. Electron., 2010, 4, pp. 54–58.
-
13)
-
3. Olgun, U., Chen, C.-C., Volakis, J.L.: ‘Design of an efficient ambient WiFi energy harvesting system’, IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2012, 6, (11), pp. 1200–1206 (doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2012.0129).
-
14)
-
15. Liu, S., Wu, Q., Qiu, Q.: ‘Accurate modeling and prediction of energy availability in energy harvesting real-time embedded systems’. Int. Conf. on Green Computing, 2010, pp. 469–476.
-
15)
-
30. Vanhee, F., Pissoort, D., Catrysse, J., et al: ‘Efficient reciprocity-based algorithm to predict worst case induced disturbances on multiconductor transmission lines due to incoming plane wavesloadlo’, IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., 2013, 55, pp. 208–216 (doi: 10.1109/TEMC.2012.2208754).
-
16)
-
31. Diallo, A., Luxey, C., Le Thuc, P., et al: ‘Diversity performance of multiantenna systems for UMTS cellular phones in different propagation environments’, Int. J. Antennas Propag., 2008, 2008, pp. 1–10 (doi: 10.1155/2008/836050).
-
17)
-
23. Sakamoto, T., Ushijima, Y., Nishiyama, E., Aikawa, M., Toyoda, I.: ‘5.8-GHz series/parallel connected rectenna array using expandable differential rectenna units’, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., 2013, 61, pp. 4872–4875 (doi: 10.1109/TAP.2013.2266316).
-
18)
-
A. Kurs ,
A. Karalis ,
R. Moffatt ,
J.D. Joannopoulos ,
P. Fisher ,
M. Soljacic
.
Wireless power transfer via strongly coupled magnetic resonance.
Science
,
6 ,
83 -
86
-
19)
-
1. Cook, D., Das, S.: ‘Smart environments: technology, protocols and applications’ (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004, 1st. edn.), pp. 1–18.
-
20)
-
22. Vullers, R., van Schaijk, R., Gyselinckx, B., Van Hoof, C.: ‘Is there a sweet spot for energy harvesting?’ Device Res. Conf., University Park, PA, USA, 2009, pp. 7–8.
-
21)
-
R.J.M. Vullers ,
R.V. Schaijk ,
H.J. Visser ,
J. Penders ,
C. Hoof
.
Energy harvesting for autonomous wireless sensor networks.
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Mag.
,
2 ,
29 -
38
-
22)
-
2. Pinuela, M., Mitcheson, P., Lucyszyn, S.: ‘Ambient RF energy harvesting in urban and semi-urban environments’, IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 2013, 61, (7), pp. 2715–2726 (doi: 10.1109/TMTT.2013.2262687).
-
23)
-
5. Dondi, D., Napoletano, G., Bertacchini, A., et al: ‘A WSN system powered by vibrations to improve safety of machinery with trailer’. IEEE Sensors, Taipei, Republic of China, 2012, pp. 1–4.
-
24)
-
25)
-
18. Zhao, W., Choi, K., Bauman, S., et al: ‘A radio-frequency energy harvesting scheme for use in low-power ad hoc distributed networks’, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II, Express Briefs, 2012, 59, pp. 573–577 (doi: 10.1109/TCSII.2012.2206935).
-
26)
-
J.B. Keller
.
Geometrical theory of diffraction.
J. Opt. Soc. Am.
,
2 ,
116 -
130
-
27)
-
29. Li, J.L.: ‘Efficient current-based hybrid analysis of wire antennas mounted on a large realistic aircraft’, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., 2010, 58, pp. 2666–2672 (doi: 10.1109/TAP.2010.2050450).
-
28)
-
36. Magdowski, M., Tkachenko, S.V., Vick, R.: ‘Coupling of stochastic electromagnetic fields to a transmission line in a reverberation chamber’, IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., 2011, 53, pp. 308–317 (doi: 10.1109/TEMC.2010.2097267).
-
29)
-
7. Lu, X., Yang, S.-H.: ‘Thermal energy harvesting for WSNs’. IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems Man and Cybernetics, Istanbul, Turkey, 2010, pp. 3045–3052.
-
30)
-
8. Xie, Y., Wang, S., Lin, L., et al: ‘Rotary triboelectric nanogenerator based on a hybridized mechanism for harvesting wind energy’, ACS Nano, 2013, 7, pp. 7119–25 (doi: 10.1021/nn402477h).
-
31)
-
37. Hill, D.A.: ‘Electromagnetic fields in cavities’ (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009), pp. 280.
-
32)
-
34. Weisstein, E.W.: ‘Sphere point picking – from wolfram math world’. (Wolfram Research, Inc. 2013).
-
33)
-
3. Beeby, S., White, N.: ‘Energy harvesting for autonomous systems’, (Artech House, 2010, 1st edn.).
-
34)
-
4. Chen, W., Wassell, I.J.: ‘Energy-efficient signal acquisition in wireless sensor networks: a compressive sensing framework’, IET Wirel. Sensor Syst., 2012, 2, (1), pp. 1–8 (doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2011.0009).
-
35)
-
T. Taga
.
Analysis for mean effective gain of mobile antennas in land mobile radio environments.
IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol.
,
2 ,
117 -
131
-
36)
-
20. Tucker, C.A., Warwick, K., Holderbaum, W..: ‘Efficient wireless power delivery for biomedical implants’, IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2012, 2, pp. 176 (doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2011.0168).
-
37)
-
14. Moser, C., Brunelli, D., Thiele, L., Benini, L.: ‘Lazy scheduling for energy harvesting sensor nodes’, in Kleinjohann, B., et al : ‘From model-driven design to resource management for distributed embedded systems’, (Springer, US, 2010, 1st edn.), pp. 125–134.
-
38)
-
J.A. Hagerty ,
F.B. Helmbrecht ,
W.H. Mccalpin ,
R. Zane ,
Z.B. Popovic
.
Recycling Ambient Microwave Energy with Broad-Band Rectenna Arrays.
IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech.
,
3 ,
1014 -
1024
-
39)
-
4. Kansal, A., Hsu, J., Zahedi, S., Srivastava, M.B.: ‘Power management in energy harvesting sensor networks’, ACM. Trans. Embed. Comput. Syst., 2007, 6, (4), pp. 1–8 (doi: 10.1145/1274858.1274870).
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/iet-wss.2013.0140
Related content
content/journals/10.1049/iet-wss.2013.0140
pub_keyword,iet_inspecKeyword,pub_concept
6
6