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RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting

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A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2018) | Viewed by 71005

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Federico Alimenti

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Dipartimento d'Ingegneria, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Interests: radar and radiometric sensors; high data-rate transceivers; microwave electronic circuits; power amplifiers for wireless communications; RFID systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Luca Roselli

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Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Interests: applied electronics; high frequency electronics; RFID; printable circuits; green electronics; wireless power transfer (microwave transfer); IoT
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Prof. Dr. Paolo Mezzanotte

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Dipartimento d'Ingegneria, University of Perugia, via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Interests: numerical methods and CAD techniques; microwave filters; design of microwave and millimeter–wave circuits; LTCC and RF-MEMS technologies; microwave circuits on cellulose; RFID; Wireless Power Transfer (WPT)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) era is clearly in front of us, with the promise to improve quality of life, to optimize energy resources, and to be a great opportunity for the electronic industry worldwide. In the near future, billions of devices will be connected to the Internet, allowing objects to autonomously sense, collect, and send data in a wireless way to the network.

In this perspective, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is one of the key technologies, mainly for three reasons: First of all, RFID tags can be seamlessly integrated with objects of various type, carrying, in a unique way, information about the object itself, its status and the physical parameters influencing it. To this purpose, RFID sensors will be further developed, and applied to several problems, ranging from biological and medical devices to the supply chain, from the food quality control to the industrial environments, etc. Second, with RFID technology, information is available on demand, i.e., only when it is strictly required. This is very important from the point of view of data management and has fundamental cyber security implications. Third, in most passive and semi-active RFID tags, wireless communication is obtained by back-scattering, i.e., reusing the carrier signal generated by the reader. Such an operation mode allows tag circuitry to consume incredibly low amounts of power, a very precious feature in the IoT world.

As a consequence of the above key features, RFID electronics can be integrated into a hosting object with a limited impact on the environment (no battery required ?), on the fabrication process and cost, and, at last, on the end user. These requirements can be pursued by introducing novel technologies and materials, such as zero- or low-power architectures, Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) and Energy Harvesting (EH), chip-less solutions or System-on-Chip (SoC) electronics, low-cost polymer- or cellulose-based substrates and roll-to-roll (R2R) compatible industrial prototyping.

The present Special Issue will investigate all these dimensions by stimulating and hosting original contributions, as well as review papers on the above topics. The expected contributions are related to, but are not limited to:

novel RFID tags and reader systems
chip-less and harmonic RFIDs
RFID sensors
flexible and green electronics
RFID firmware, communication protocols and security
electromagnetic energy harvesting
near-field WPT techniques
far-field WPT techniques
energy scavenging (mechanical, thermal, solar, etc)
System-on-Chip
ultra-low power electronics for communication and sensing

Dr. Federico Alimenti
Prof. Luca Roselli
Prof. Paolo Mezzanotte
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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30 pages, 10149 KiB

Open AccessArticle

City Marathon Active Timing System Using Bluetooth Low Energy Technology

by Chun-I Sun, Jung-Tang Huang, Shih-Chi Weng and Meng-Fan Chien

Electronics 2019, 8(2), 252; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8020252 - 22 Feb 2019

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 6174

Abstract

This study proposes and implements city marathon timing technology using Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) communication technology. This study also performs a prevalidation of the athletes’ physiological sensory data that is sent out by the same timing system—the BLE active communication technology. In order to verify the timing and positioning technology, 621 K records of static measurement of the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) were first collected. The trend of the RSSI between the location and the BLE Receiver when the runners carried a BLE Tag was analyzed. Then, the difference between the runners’ passing timestamp and the runners’ actual passing time when the runners carried a BLE Tag and ran past the BLE Receivers was dynamically recorded and analyzed. Additionally, the timing sensing rate when multiple runners ran past the BLE Receivers was verified. In order to confirm the accuracy of the time synchronization in the remote timing device, the timing error, synced by the Network Time Protocol (NTP), was analyzed. A global positioning system (GPS) signal was used to enhance the time synchronization’s accuracy. Additionally, the timing devices were separated by 15 km, and it was verified that they remained within the timing error range of 1 ms. The BLE communication technology has at least one more battery requirement than traditional passive radio frequency identification (RFID) timing devices. Therefore, the experiment also verified that the BLE Tag of this system can continue to operate for at least 48 h under normal conditions. Based on the above experimental results, it is estimated that the system can provide a timing error of under ±156 ms for each athlete. The system can also meet the scale of the biggest international city marathon event. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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16 pages, 573 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Outage and Throughput of WPCN-SWIPT Networks with Nonlinear EH Model in Nakagami-m Fading

by Ruihong Jiang, Ke Xiong, Yu Zhang, Li Zhou, Tong Liu and Zhangdui Zhong

Electronics 2019, 8(2), 138; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8020138 - 29 Jan 2019

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3164

Abstract

This paper analyzes outage probability and reliable throughput performance of a multi-user wireless-powered communication network-simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (WPCN-SWIPT) network with the logistic function-based (LG) nonlinear energy-harvesting (EH) model in Nakagami-m fading. Power-splitting (PS) receiver architecture is considered. The closed-form expressions of the system outage probability and the system reliable throughput are derived, and then the corresponding asymptotic expressions are also provided to achieve simpler calculation in the high-transmit power scenarios. Simulation results demonstrate the correctness of our derived analytical results and show that the systems under the LG nonlinear and linear EH models have very different performance behaviors. Moreover, since the LG nonlinear EH model is closer to the features of practical EH circuit than the linear one, using the LG nonlinear EH model can avoid the false output results of the system performance evaluation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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17 pages, 1222 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Objective Optimization of Fog Computing Assisted Wireless Powered Networks: Joint Energy and Time Minimization

by Yuan Liu, Ke Xiong, Yu Zhang, Li Zhou, Fuhong Lin and Tong Liu

Electronics 2019, 8(2), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8020137 - 29 Jan 2019

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2497

Abstract

This paper studies the optimal design of the fog computing assisted wireless powered network, where an access point (AP) transmits information and charges an energy-limited sensor device with Radio Frequency (RF) energy transfer. The sensor device then uses the harvested energy to decode information and execute computing. Two candidate computing modes, i.e., local computing and fog computing modes, are considered. Two multi-objective optimization problems are formulated to minimize the required energy and time for the two modes, where the time assignments and the transmit power are jointly optimized. For the local computing mode, we obtain the closed-form expression of the optimal time assignment for energy harvesting by solving a convex optimization problem, and then analyze the effects of scaling factor between the minimal required energy and time on the optimal time assignment. For the fog computing mode, we derive closed-form and semi-closed-form expressions of the optimal transmit power and time assignment for offloading by adopting the Lagrangian dual method, the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions and Lambert

W

Function. Simulation results show that, when the sensor device has poor computing capacity or when it is far away from the AP, the fog computing mode is the better choice; otherwise, the local computing is preferred to achieve a better performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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69 pages, 6545 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Backscatter Communications: Inception of the Battery-Free Era—A Comprehensive Survey

by Mudasar Latif Memon, Navrati Saxena, Abhishek Roy and Dong Ryeol Shin

Electronics 2019, 8(2), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8020129 - 26 Jan 2019

Cited by 51 | Viewed by 13275

Abstract

The ever increasing proliferation of wireless objects and consistent connectivity demands are creating significant challenges for battery-constrained wireless devices. The vision of massive IoT, involving billions of smart objects to be connected to the cellular network, needs to address the problem of uninterrupted power consumption while taking advantage of emerging high-frequency 5G communications. The problem of limited battery power motivates us to utilize radio frequency (RF) signals as the energy source for battery-free communications in next-generation wireless networks. Backscatter communication (BackCom) makes it possible to harvest energy from incident RF signals and reflect back parts of the same signals while modulating the data. Ambient BackCom (Amb-BackCom) is a type of BackCom that can harvest energy from nearby WiFi, TV, and cellular RF signals to modulate information. The objective of this article is to review BackCom as a solution to the limited battery life problem and enable future battery-free communications for combating the energy issues for devices in emerging wireless networks. We first highlight the energy constraint in existing wireless communications. We then investigate BackCom as a practical solution to the limited battery life problem. Subsequently, in order to take the advantages of omnipresent radio waves, we elaborate BackCom tag architecture and various types of BackCom. To understand encoding and data extraction, we demonstrate signal processing aspects that cover channel coding, interference, decoding, and signal detection schemes. Moreover, we also describe BackCom communication modes, modulation schemes, and multiple access techniques to accommodate maximum users with high throughput. Similarly, to mitigate the increased network energy, adequate data and power transfer schemes for BackCom are elaborated, in addition to reliability, security, and range extension. Finally, we highlight BackCom applications with existing research challenges and future directions for next-generation 5G wireless networks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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12 pages, 5893 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Low-Cost Portable Reader for Frequency Domain Chipless Tags: Architecture and Experimental Results on Depolarizing Tags

by Luca Boggioni, Lorenzo Monti, Sergio Terranova, Filippo Costa, Simone Genovesi and Giuliano Manara

Electronics 2019, 8(1), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8010035 - 01 Jan 2019

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3697

Abstract

In this paper, a low-cost chipless reader for detecting depolarizing tags is described. The reader operates in the frequency band (2–2.5) GHz, and it is compact and integrated in a single board. The reader architecture and its transmitting and receiving antennas are presented. Reader antennas comprise of two orthogonally placed, E-shaped patches with a decoupling below −35 dB. The reader performance is evaluated on a four-bit tag formed by four obliquely placed dipoles on top of a metallic ground plane. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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14 pages, 6545 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Adaptive Power Harvester with Active Load Modulation for Highly Efficient Short/Long Range RF WPT Applications

by Abdullah M. Almohaimeed, Rony E. Amaya, Jose A. Lima and Mustapha C. E. Yagoub

Electronics 2018, 7(7), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7070125 - 23 Jul 2018

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 5295

Abstract

After demonstrating, in previous works, the proof of concept of adaptive rectifiers with active load modulation to operate simultaneously for short/long range RF Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) while maintaining a high Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE), the authors introduced in this paper a power link budget of the proposed adaptive rectifier with a compromise between distance and efficiency. Then, to further exhibit its capabilities and enhance its performance, this paper first introduced a discussion about the parameters preventing the rectifier from operating over a wide range of input powers was performed. Furthermore, active load modulation was implemented and its co-simulation results presented. Finally, an adaptive rectifier was fabricated and its results successfully compared to measured data. It exhibits 40% of PCE over a wide dynamic input range of incident RF power levels from −6 to 25 dBm at the 900 MHz in the Industrial Scientific Medical band (ISM band), with a maximum PCE of 66% for an input power of 15 dBm. The proposed devices are therefore suitable for WPT applications to harvest energy from a controlled source. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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12 pages, 7109 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Practical Energy Harvesting for Batteryless Ambient Backscatter Sensors

by Georgios Vougioukas, Antonis Dimitriou, Aggelos Bletsas and John Sahalos

Electronics 2018, 7(6), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7060095 - 13 Jun 2018

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5601

Abstract

This work studies the performance of two methods for providing power to an ultra-low power, ambient backscatter tag, omitting the need for any battery. RF energy harvesting from a dedicated source and energy harvesting from ambient light using a single photodiode are compared. Extensive measurement results from tests conducted under real world conditions are offered for both harvesting methods. It is concluded that for a total cost of under 7 Euros the need for a battery can be eliminated, by using a single photodiode element along with a suitable boost converter. The ultra-low power character of the utilized tag enables the use of multiple harvesting methods and paves the way towards truly battery-less wireless sensor systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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11 pages, 1546 KiB

Open AccessArticle

RFID 3D-LANDMARC Localization Algorithm Based on Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization

by Xiang Wu, Fangming Deng and Zhongbin Chen

Electronics 2018, 7(2), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7020019 - 09 Feb 2018

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 5441

Abstract

Location information is crucial in various location-based applications, the nodes in location system are often deployed in the 3D scenario in particle, so that localization algorithms in a three-dimensional space are necessary. The existing RFID three-dimensional (3D) localization technology based on the LANDMARC localization algorithm is widely used because of its low complexity, but its localization accuracy is low. In this paper, we proposed an improved 3D LANDMARC indoor localization algorithm to increase the localization accuracy. Firstly, we use the advantages of the RBF neural network in data fitting to pre-process the acquired signal and study the wireless signal transmission loss model to improve localization accuracy of the LANDMARC algorithm. With the purpose of solving the adaptive problem in the LANDMARC localization algorithm, we introduce the quantum particle swarm optimization (QPSO) algorithm, which has the technology advantages of global search and optimization, to solve the localization model. Experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm improves the localization accuracy and adaptability significantly, compared with the basic LANDMARC algorithm and particle swarm optimization LANDMARC algorithm, and it can overcome the shortcoming of slow convergence existed in particle swarm optimization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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1513 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Proactive Redundant Data Filtering Scheme for Combined RFID and Sensor Networks

by Mourad Ouadou and Ouadoudi Zytoune

Electronics 2017, 6(4), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6040072 - 24 Sep 2017

Viewed by 4785

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is gaining significant thrust in many application fields such as identification and real-time localization systems. Consequently, nowadays, the demand for integrated RFID-Sensors networks is increasing. Usually, numerous RFID-Sensors are deployed to form such types of networks. Then, an RFID tag can be located in the reading field of more than one reader that generates duplicated data reception at the base station. The data redundancy transmission causes unnecessary energy consumption and network overloading that contributes to the augmentation of transmission delays. In this paper, we tackle the data duplication reception problem. We propose an efficient and proactive filtering scheme for redundant data based on a preliminary broadcast. Our scheme allows us to prevent and significantly reduce the redundant data and improve the performances of the integrated RFID-sensor network. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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Review

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32 pages, 6587 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

A Review of Electric Impedance Matching Techniques for Piezoelectric Sensors, Actuators and Transducers

by Vivek T. Rathod

Electronics 2019, 8(2), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8020169 - 01 Feb 2019

Cited by 92 | Viewed by 19984

Abstract

Any electric transmission lines involving the transfer of power or electric signal requires the matching of electric parameters with the driver, source, cable, or the receiver electronics. Proceeding with the design of electric impedance matching circuit for piezoelectric sensors, actuators, and transducers require careful consideration of the frequencies of operation, transmitter or receiver impedance, power supply or driver impedance and the impedance of the receiver electronics. This paper reviews the techniques available for matching the electric impedance of piezoelectric sensors, actuators, and transducers with their accessories like amplifiers, cables, power supply, receiver electronics and power storage. The techniques related to the design of power supply, preamplifier, cable, matching circuits for electric impedance matching with sensors, actuators, and transducers have been presented. The paper begins with the common tools, models, and material properties used for the design of electric impedance matching. Common analytical and numerical methods used to develop electric impedance matching networks have been reviewed. The role and importance of electrical impedance matching on the overall performance of the transducer system have been emphasized throughout. The paper reviews the common methods and new methods reported for electrical impedance matching for specific applications. The paper concludes with special applications and future perspectives considering the recent advancements in materials and electronics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID, WPT and Energy Harvesting)

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