Lifetime Extension of Higher Class UHF RFID Tags using special Power Management Techniques and Energy Harvesting Devices

Enhanced RFID tag technology especially in the UHF frequency range provides extended functionality like high operating range and sensing and monitoring capabilities. Such functionality requiring extended system structures including data acquisition units, real time clocks and active transmitters causes a high energy consumption of the tag and requires an on board energy store (battery). As a key parameter of the reliability of an RFID system is the lifetime, the energy budget of the higher class tag has to be as balanced as possible. This can be achieved by using energy harvesting devices as additional power supply. The PowerTag project and thus this paper proposes special power management mechanisms in combination with special energy storage structures interfacing energy harvesting devices and dealing with their special requirements. First various power management and power saving techniques are simulated and their performance is evaluated. In a second step different implementation variants of energy storage structures are compared by using accurate simulation models of the various parts of the system. The results are compared to manufacturer given and guaranteed system performance parameters of a state-of-the-art higher class UHF RFID system. The presented approach combines two simulations for the design and the evaluation of different tag architectures and power saving techniques. Simulation results are showing an improvement of over 44% of achievable lifetime applying the power saving techniques and power subsystem architectures presented in this paper, compared to a state-of-the-art higher class system

Internet of Things Strategic Research Roadmap

Internet of Things (IoT) is an integrated part of Future Internet including existing and evolving Internet and network developments and could be conceptually defined as a dynamic global network infrastructure with self configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols where physical and virtual “things” have identities, physical attributes, and virtual personalities, use intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated into the information network

Transiently Powered Computers

Demand for compact, easily deployable, energy-efficient computers has driven the development of general-purpose transiently powered computers (TPCs) that lack both batteries and wired power, operating exclusively on energy harvested from their surroundings. TPCs\u27 dependence solely on transient, harvested power offers several important design-time benefits. For example, omitting batteries saves board space and weight while obviating the need to make devices physically accessible for maintenance. However, transient power may provide an unpredictable supply of energy that makes operation difficult. A predictable energy supply is a key abstraction underlying most electronic designs. TPCs discard this abstraction in favor of opportunistic computation that takes advantage of available resources. A crucial question is how should a software-controlled computing device operate if it depends completely on external entities for power and other resources? The question poses challenges for computation, communication, storage, and other aspects of TPC design. The main idea of this work is that software techniques can make energy harvesting a practicable form of power supply for electronic devices. Its overarching goal is to facilitate the design and operation of usable TPCs. This thesis poses a set of challenges that are fundamental to TPCs, then pairs these challenges with approaches that use software techniques to address them. To address the challenge of computing steadily on harvested power, it describes Mementos, an energy-aware state-checkpointing system for TPCs. To address the dependence of opportunistic RF-harvesting TPCs on potentially untrustworthy RFID readers, it describes CCCP, a protocol and system for safely outsourcing data storage to RFID readers that may attempt to tamper with data. Additionally, it describes a simulator that facilitates experimentation with the TPC model, and a prototype computational RFID that implements the TPC model. To show that TPCs can improve existing electronic devices, this thesis describes applications of TPCs to implantable medical devices (IMDs), a challenging design space in which some battery-constrained devices completely lack protection against radio-based attacks. TPCs can provide security and privacy benefits to IMDs by, for instance, cryptographically authenticating other devices that want to communicate with the IMD before allowing the IMD to use any of its battery power. This thesis describes a simplified IMD that lacks its own radio, saving precious battery energy and therefore size. The simplified IMD instead depends on an RFID-scale TPC for all of its communication functions. TPCs are a natural area of exploration for future electronic design, given the parallel trends of energy harvesting and miniaturization. This work aims to establish and evaluate basic principles by which TPCs can operate

Emerging research directions in computer science : contributions from the young informatics faculty in Karlsruhe

In order to build better human-friendly human-computer interfaces, such interfaces need to be enabled with capabilities to perceive the user, his location, identity, activities and in particular his interaction with others and the machine. Only with these perception capabilities can smart systems ( for example human-friendly robots or smart environments) become posssible. In my research I\u27m thus focusing on the development of novel techniques for the visual perception of humans and their activities, in order to facilitate perceptive multimodal interfaces, humanoid robots and smart environments. My work includes research on person tracking, person identication, recognition of pointing gestures, estimation of head orientation and focus of attention, as well as audio-visual scene and activity analysis. Application areas are humanfriendly humanoid robots, smart environments, content-based image and video analysis, as well as safety- and security-related applications. This article gives a brief overview of my ongoing research activities in these areas

Low-Power Wireless Distributed SIMD Architecture Concept: An 8051 Based Remote Execution Unit

Power has become a critical aspect in the design of modern wireless systems, especially in passive device nodes such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, sensor nodes etc. Passive RFID tags in particular use simple logic that is used to respond with a unique code or data to identify objects when queried by an interrogator, whereas wireless passive sensor devices use microcontrollers for sensor data processing. There is a need for a Minimal Instruction Set Architecture (MISA) for such passive nodes with regard to low power. In this context, passive node capabilities need to be explored, possibly to suit target applications, in order to enable more than just identification and perhaps less than those of a conventional microcontroller Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). This dissertation research demonstrates a low-power wireless distributed processor architecture concept. The data and program instructions are stored on a powered interrogator providing wireless supervisory control for the remote passive node that has a basic processing core called the remote execution unit (REU). The interrogator and the passive node (REU) combination can be viewed as a complete processor or as multiple processing units forming the basis for a wireless distributed Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) processor. This research introduces and investigates the REU architecture using an 8051-MISA with the goal of reducing power consumption of the system. A novel low power data-driven symbol decoder-CRC along with the 8051-MISA based execution core design form the frontend and core part of the REU architecture. Clocked and asynchronous digital logic implementations of the REU core design are presented and correspondingly the power, area and speed comparisons are also provided. Lack of strong support by commercial CAD tools is a major hurdle for synthesis of asynchronous designs. This research also presents a high-level design flow used to implement the asynchronous logic for the REU using traditional clocked CAD flows. This research work demonstrates immense potential to realize low power wireless passive sensor nodes for biomedical, automation, environmental, etc., applications especially while providing the basis for a programmable passive remote unit for distributed processing

New Waves of IoT Technologies Research – Transcending Intelligence and Senses at the Edge to Create Multi Experience Environments

The next wave of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) brings new technological developments that incorporate radical advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), edge computing processing, new sensing capabilities, more security protection and autonomous functions accelerating progress towards the ability for IoT systems to self-develop, self-maintain and self-optimise. The emergence of hyper autonomous IoT applications with enhanced sensing, distributed intelligence, edge processing and connectivity, combined with human augmentation, has the potential to power the transformation and optimisation of industrial sectors and to change the innovation landscape. This chapter is reviewing the most recent advances in the next wave of the IoT by looking not only at the technology enabling the IoT but also at the platforms and smart data aspects that will bring intelligence, sustainability, dependability, autonomy, and will support human-centric solutions.acceptedVersio

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business