RF-Powered Low-Energy Sensor Nodes for Predictive Maintenance in Electromagnetically Harsh Industrial Environments
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. RF Illuminator Design and Characterization
3. Design of the Wirelessly Activated Node
- Two co-located antennas, operating in the same frequency band and adopting frequency diverse technique discussed above, one for receiving the energy to be harvested from the WPT, and one for the communication.
- A rectifier for converting the RF signal into a DC signal to be fed to the buck-boost DC/DC converter in the power management section.
- A power management section that efficiently harvests energy at the rectifier’s output to the storage elements and manages the power supply to the sensor node.
- A low power microcontroller unit (MCU, STM32L476RE, STMicroelectronics, Geneva, Switzerland) to control the node peripherals.
- A 2.4 GHz SX1280 transceiver (Semtech Corporation, Camarillo, CA, USA) supporting LoRa communication protocol, feeding a 2450AT42E0100 (Johanson Technology, Camarillo, CA, USA) 2.4 GHz surface mount technology (SMT) above-metal mini chip antenna.
- An ultra-low-power three-axis accelerometer (IIS2DLPC, STMicroelectronics, Geneva, Switzerland) for inertial sensing.
- An ultra-low-power real-time clock (AB1805, Abracon, Spicewood, TX, USA) for duty-cycling the node operation, by turning on the node at specific time intervals only.
3.1. Node Operations
- START-UP: when power is available at the input, but the storage element is depleted, an undervoltage-lockout (UVLO) circuit keeps the load disconnected from the storage elements until it gets charged up to 2 V. During start-up, only charging operation occurs to minimize losses and charge time and to avoid deadlock conditions, which could happen with an extremely low input power level.
- POWER-ON: when the storage element voltage is above 2 V, the node turns on for the first time and transmits a short package to the gateway of the WSN to signal its presence in the system. The gateway replies with an acknowledgment. The MCU programs the real-time clock (RTC) to wake up the node after the scheduled time. The RTC puts the node in an ultra-low-power sleep mode by cutting off the power supply to the load.
- SLEEP MODE: only the RTC is on, with the node power consumption given by the RTC itself and the PMOS (p-type metal oxide semiconductor) load switch leakage currents. Overall current consumption is below 150 nA. The power management section keeps charging the storage element until it reaches the maximum voltage or 3.3 V.
- ACTIVE MODE: after the programmed sleep time has passed, the RTC awakes the node, and the MCU starts acquisition of accelerometer and temperature data over a 1-s window, processes it (for simplicity, we limit ourselves to minimum, maximum and average on the three-axis in this example), and sends the data to the gateway. The gateway replies with an acknowledgment and, eventually, information on the next wake up time. The node programs the RTC and goes back to sleep mode until the RTC wakes it up again.
3.2. Top Layer Radiative Part for Wireless Energy and Data Transfer
3.3. Energy Harvesting and Power Management
3.4. Sensing, Communication, and Control
4. System Measurement Campaigns
4.1. Sensor Node Consumption
4.2. Rectifying and WPT Characterization
4.3. Case Study: Measurement Campaign in the Engine Compartment of a Car
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Component | Energy |
---|---|
MCU (400 SPS) | 380 μJ |
MCU (1600 SPS) | 510 μJ |
IMU (400 SPS) | 265 μJ |
IMU (1600 SPS) | 275 μJ |
LoRa Transceiver | 405 μJ |
Real Time Clock | 13.2 μJ |
Decoupling Caps (estimate) | 70 μJ |
Illuminator–Node Distance | VOPEN | RLOAD @ VOPEN/2 |
---|---|---|
30 cm | 3.24 V | 7.58 kΩ |
40 cm | 2.12 V | 10.43 kΩ |
60 cm | 1.58 V | 12.38 kΩ |
80 cm | 0.92 V | 9.40 kΩ |
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Paolini, G.; Guermandi, M.; Masotti, D.; Shanawani, M.; Benassi, F.; Benini, L.; Costanzo, A. RF-Powered Low-Energy Sensor Nodes for Predictive Maintenance in Electromagnetically Harsh Industrial Environments. Sensors 2021, 21, 386. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020386
Paolini G, Guermandi M, Masotti D, Shanawani M, Benassi F, Benini L, Costanzo A. RF-Powered Low-Energy Sensor Nodes for Predictive Maintenance in Electromagnetically Harsh Industrial Environments. Sensors. 2021; 21(2):386. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020386
Chicago/Turabian StylePaolini, Giacomo, Marco Guermandi, Diego Masotti, Mazen Shanawani, Francesca Benassi, Luca Benini, and Alessandra Costanzo. 2021. "RF-Powered Low-Energy Sensor Nodes for Predictive Maintenance in Electromagnetically Harsh Industrial Environments" Sensors 21, no. 2: 386. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020386
APA StylePaolini, G., Guermandi, M., Masotti, D., Shanawani, M., Benassi, F., Benini, L., & Costanzo, A. (2021). RF-Powered Low-Energy Sensor Nodes for Predictive Maintenance in Electromagnetically Harsh Industrial Environments. Sensors, 21(2), 386. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020386