Gain Enhancement Strategies in Wireless RF Energy Transfer

The interest in wireless connectivity is ever-increasing and the needs for automated remote access, monitoring, and control are well-appreciated. However, widespread adoption of networked wireless devices or Internet of Things (IoT) nodes is largely constrained by their affordable deployment and maintenance costs and convenience of their long-term usage. In particular, in IoT communication networks, one of the main constraints is energy sustainability, as the wireless end nodes are characterized by limited energy resources.

In this presentation, we will first discuss the energy harvesting aided IoT solutions and the limitations. Subsequently, we will present the communication and networking propositions with dedicated on-demand wireless energy supply. Specifically, aided by our experimental studies, we will present energy replenishment by radio frequency energy transfer (RFET) and RF energy routing. Finally, the challenges due to interference in short-range RF communication, as in RFET, and energy-efficient gain multiplying solution via distributed beamforming will be presented.