A team of researchers have discovered a technique to capture and harness energy transmitted by sources like radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. This will prove very helpful in providing a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips.
In a press release, Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research, said, “There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it. We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability.”
Communications devices transmit energy in many different frequency ranges, or bands. The team's scavenging devices can capture this energy, convert it from AC to DC, and then store it in capacitors and batteries. The scavenging technology can take advantage presently of frequencies from FM radio to radar, a range spanning 100 megahertz (MHz) to 15 gigahertz (GHz) or higher.
A presentation on this energy-scavenging technology was scheduled for delivery July 6 at the IEEE (News - Alert) Antennas and Propagation Symposium in Spokane, Wash. The discovery is based on research supported by multiple sponsors, including the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration and Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
The team is using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy-scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. The resulting self-powered wireless sensors could be used for chemical, biological, heat and stress sensing for defense and industry; radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagging for manufacturing and shipping, and monitoring tasks in many fields including communications and power usage.
Vyas further added, “We can now print circuits that are capable of functioning at up to 15 GHz -- 60 GHz if we print on a polymer. So we have seen a frequency operation improvement of two orders of magnitude.”
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Sujata Garud is a TMCnet freelancer with three years of writing/editing experience and two years of market research experience. As an editor she has covered the IT, electronics, banking, pharma, construction, mining and healthcare industries. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
