Energy-efficient Acoustic Communication Using Vibration Energy Harvesting

With the ubiquity of microphone-enabled pervasivedevice, the use of speaker-microphone to transfer small piece ofinformation has become a hot area in both industry and researchcommunities. Unfortunately, however, microphone-based acousticcommunication systems rely on power-consuming digital signalprocessing (DSP) to decode the modulated information in thesound. Given the battery lifetime of today’s mobile devicesis limited, microphone-based systems are facing challenges inachieving long-term computing and communication. In thisproposal, we aim to investigates the possibility of using a vibrationenergy harvesting (VEH) device as an receiver for energyefficientacoustic communication. By modulating the ambientvibration energy using a transmitting speaker, and demodulatingthe harvested power at the receiving VEH, our current systemprototype [1] is able to transmit small amounts of dataat reasonable rates between two proximate devices. The keyadvantage of using VEH as a receiver is that the modulatedsound waves can be successfully demodulated directly fromthe harvested power without employing the power-consumingDSP, which makes a VEH receiver more power efficient than aconventional microphone-based decoder. As part of our futurework, we will further improve and optimize the performance ofour prototype system while ensure better user experience andsystem security