Feasibility of Ambient RF Energy Harvesting for Self-Sustainable M2M Communications Using Transparent and Flexible Graphene Antennas

Lifetime is a critical parameter in ubiquitous, battery-operated sensors for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication systems, an emerging part of the future Internet of Things. In this practical article, the performance of radio frequency (RF) to DC energy converters using transparent and flexible rectennas based on graphene in an ambient RF energyharvesting scenario is evaluated. Full-wave EM simulations of a dipole antenna assuming the reported state-of-the-art sheet resistance for few-layer, transparent graphene yields an estimated ohmic efficiency of 5 %. In the power budget calculation, the low efficiency of transparent graphene antennas is an issue because of the relatively low amount of available ambient RF energy in the frequency bands of interest, which together sets an upper limit on the harvested energy available for the RF-powered device. Using a commercial diode rectifier and an off-the-shelf wireless system for sensor communication, the graphene-based solution provides only a limited battery lifetime extension. However, for ultra-low-power technologies currently at the research stage, more advantageous ambient energy levels, or other use cases with infrequent data transmission, graphene-based solutions may be more feasible

Effects of Practical Rechargeability Constraints on Perpetual RF Harvesting Sensor Network Operation

Green perpetual sensor network operation is the need of the hour for critical applications, such as surveillance, military, and environment monitoring. Mobile integrated data collection and recharging is a promising approach to meet this requirement by routinely visiting the field nodes for collecting the sensed data and supplying energy via radio frequency (RF) energy transfer. Practical constraints, such as self-discharge and aging effects of the energy storage element (supercapacitor), significantly impact the renewable energy cycle (REC) and, hence, strongly influence the performance of RF energy harvesting networks. To account for the nonidealities in practical supercapacitors, in this paper, a circuit model for REC is proposed, and corresponding RF charging time and node lifetime expressions are derived. Hardware experiments are performed to validate the proposed REC model. REC for complicated supercapacitor models is characterized using duality principle and a generic simulation model. Using the developed analytical models for practical supercapacitors, the size of network for perpetual operation is estimated, which is demonstrated to be significantly less than that predicted by considering ideal supercapacitor behavior. For example, with three-branch supercapacitor model, the estimated sustainable network size is shown to be nearly 52% less than that offered by the ideal supercapacitor model. © 2013 IEEE

Energy: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 16, January 1978

This bibliography lists 1287 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system from October 1, 1977 through December 31, 1977