This paper reviews the development of energy harvesting for low-power embedded structural health monitoring (SHM) sensing systems. A statistical pattern recognition paradigm for SHM is first presented and the concept of energy harvesting for embedded sensing systems is addressed with respect to the data acquisition portion of this paradigm. Next, various existing and emerging sensing modalities used for SHM and their respective power requirements are summarized followed by a discussion of SHM sensor network paradigms, power requirements for these networks, and power optimization strategies. Various approaches to energy harvesting and energy storage are discussed and limitations associated with the current technology are addressed. The paper concludes by defining some future research directions that are aimed at transitioning the concept of energy harvesting for embedded SHM sensing systems from laboratory research to field-deployed engineering prototypes. Finally, it is noted that many of the technologies discussed herein are applicable to powering any type of low-power embedded sensing system regardless of the application.

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Energy Harvesting for Structural Health Monitoring Sensor Networks

Radiative wireless power transfer (WPT) is a promising technology to provide cost-effective and real-time power supplies to wireless devices. Although radiative WPT shares many similar characteristics with the extensively studied wireless information transfer or communication, they also differ significantly in terms of design objectives, transmitter/receiver architectures and hardware constraints, and so on. In this paper, we first give an overview on the various WPT technologies, the historical development of the radiative WPT technology and the main challenges in designing contemporary radiative WPT systems. Then, we focus on the state-of-the-art communication and signal processing techniques that can be applied to tackle these challenges. Topics discussed include energy harvester modeling, energy beamforming for WPT, channel acquisition, power region characterization in multi-user WPT, waveform design with linear and non-linear energy receiver model, safety and health issues of WPT, massive multiple-input multiple-output and millimeter wave enabled WPT, wireless charging control, and wireless power and communication systems co-design. We also point out directions that are promising for future research.

Communications and Signals Design for Wireless Power Transmission

This paper presents a novel broadband rectenna for ambient wireless energy harvesting over the frequency band from 1.8 to 2.5 GHz. First of all, the characteristics of the ambient radio-frequency energy are studied. The results are then used to aid the design of a new rectenna. A novel two-branch impedance matching circuit is introduced to enhance the performance and efficiency of the rectenna at a relatively low ambient input power level. A novel broadband dual-polarized cross-dipole antenna is proposed which has embedded harmonic rejection property and can reject the second and third harmonics to further improve the rectenna efficiency. The measured power sensitivity of this design is down to $- {\bf 35}\;{\bf dBm}$ and the conversion efficiency reaches 55% when the input power to the rectifier is $- {\bf 10}\;{\bf dBm}$ . It is demonstrated that the output power from the proposed rectenna is higher than the other published designs with a similar antenna size under the same ambient condition. The proposed broadband rectenna could be used to power many low-power electronic devices and sensors and found a range of potential applications.

A High-Efficiency Broadband Rectenna for Ambient Wireless Energy Harvesting

Radiative wireless power transfer (WPT) is a promising technology to provide cost-effective and real-time power supplies to wireless devices. Although radiative WPT shares many similar characteristics with the extensively studied wireless information transfer or communication, they also differ significantly in terms of design objectives, transmitter/receiver architectures and hardware constraints, etc. In this article, we first give an overview on the various WPT technologies, the historical development of the radiative WPT technology and the main challenges in designing contemporary radiative WPT systems. Then, we focus on discussing the new communication and signal processing techniques that can be applied to tackle these challenges. Topics discussed include energy harvester modeling, energy beamforming for WPT, channel acquisition, power region characterization in multi-user WPT, waveform design with linear and non-linear energy receiver model, safety and health issues of WPT, massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) and millimeter wave (mmWave) enabled WPT, wireless charging control, and wireless power and communication systems co-design. We also point out directions that are promising for future research.

A novel six-band dual circular polarization (CP) rectenna for ambient radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting is presented. Due to the nonlinearity and complex input impedance of the rectifying circuit, the design of a multiband and/or broadband rectenna is always challenging and its performance can be easily affected by variation in the input power level and load. Therefore, an improved impedance matching technique is introduced, which is aimed to improve the performance of the rectifier with a varying condition. A broadband dual CP receiving antenna is proposed, which has a very wide bandwidth (from 550 to 2.5 GHz) and a compact size. An annular ring structure and a novel feeding technique are employed in order to reduce the size and improve the antenna performance. As a result, the proposed rectenna is the first design that covers six frequency bands, including part of the digital TV and most cellular mobile and WLAN bands in the U.K., while the optimal load range for a constant conversion efficiency is from 10 to 75 $\text{k}\Omega $ . The measured results show that the maximum harvested dc power of the rectenna in typical outdoor and indoor environments are 26 and 8 $\mu \text{W}$ , respectively; it can therefore be applied to a range of low-power wireless applications.

A Novel Six-Band Dual CP Rectenna Using Improved Impedance Matching Technique for Ambient RF Energy Harvesting

This paper reports a new circularly polarized rectenna whose rectifying circuit includes two diodes. The rectenna consists of a coplanar stripline (CPS) truncated patch antenna and CPS bandpass filter, which can block harmonic signals up to the third order reradiating from the rectifying circuit. The rectenna is printed on Rogers Duroid 5880 substrate with /spl epsiv//sub r/=2.2 and a thickness of 20 mil. The new dual-diode rectenna can provide at least twice the dc output voltage than the traditional rectenna with only a single diode, which has the same layout dimension as the single-diode rectenna. The dual-diode rectenna achieves an RF-to-dc conversion efficiency of 76% at 5.8 GHz. The proposed rectennas can be interconnected to form the rectenna arrays by series, parallel, and cascaded connections. It is found that a cascade connected rectenna array can provide the highest output voltage. The antenna element can be easily extended to become a traveling-wave antenna or array suitable for high output voltage or current in wireless power transmission applications.

5.8-GHz circularly polarized dual-diode rectenna and rectenna array for microwave power transmission

This paper proposes two new circularly polarized retrodirective rectenna arrays, including a 2 /spl times/ 2 array and a 4 /spl times/ 4 array. A proximity-coupled microstrip ring antenna is used as the retrodirective rectenna array element, which can automatically block harmonic signals up to the third order from reradiating by the rectifying circuit. These arrays are printed on a Rogers Duroid 5880 substrate of /spl epsiv//sub r/=2.2 with a two-layer structure, with a total thickness of 1.5748 mm (or 62 mil). The new retrodirective rectenna array can track the incoming power source signals automatically and is less sensitive to the power incident angle variations, i.e., main-beam alignment deviation. It can provide a nearly constant dc output voltage within /spl plusmn/10/spl deg/ and 90% dc output voltage within /spl plusmn/45/spl deg/. The conversion efficiencies of the two arrays are 73.3% and 55%, respectively, when the power density is 10 mW/cm/sup 2/. The retrodirective rectenna array can be used in the low-power density applications for microwave wireless power transmissions.

Yu-Jiun Ren

Papers

5.8-GHz circularly polarized dual-diode rectenna and rectenna array for microwave power transmission

New 5.8-GHz circularly polarized retrodirective rectenna arrays for wireless power transmission