Power optimization for self-sustained IoT enabled sensor nodes

Abstract

Considering the reported existing harvested power in the microwatt (µW) range, IoT-enabled sensors cannot be operated self-sustainably pertaining to their high-milliwatt (mW) range power consumption. To mitigate this, circuit optimization and the use of deep sleep code were deployed leading to power reduction from 225 mW to 264 µW. Furthermore, an increase in the harvested power by changing the antenna design, from patch to horn has been demonstrated successfully. The horn antenna was designed and fabricated at 2.45 GHz for 15 dB gain. The analytical results show that the use of the horn antenna improves the harvested RF power by 15X compared to that of the patch antenna, which is enough for self-sustained sensor operation.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet-of-Things (IoT)
• RF energy harvester
• harvested power
• sensor
• optimization

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India, for providing financial assistance under the SRF-Direct Scheme and the director, CSIR- CEERI, Pilani for allowing us to carry out research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.