RF Harvesting System for Remotely Powered Wireless Sensor Nodes

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) based on batteryless nodes have been attracting an increasing attention in the scientific and industrial communities. Energy to replace battery can be extracted from environmental sources such as vibration, solar, thermal, or provided by RF carrier of a power transmitter. An effective co-design approach for RF harvesting systems is described, which is based on a CMOS differential drive rectifier and an inductively coupled loop (ICL) antenna. The proposed methodology acts on both rectifier and antenna, and aims at optimizing system performance in terms of efficiency and input sensitivity for a given load specification. Moreover, a rectifier solution is also proposed to enhance circuit performance by properly driving transistor bulks without additional components.