Information Based Smart RF Energy Harvesting in Wireless Sensor Networks

A major constraint for long term sustainability of wireless sensor networks (WSN) and the Internet of Things (IoT) is the limitation of their energy resources. Battery replacement in sensor nodes can be a prohibitively expensive exercise because of their abundance. RF energy harvesting (R-EH) has emerged as a promising technique to improve the lifespan, reliability, and capacity of WSN and IoT networks. In this work, information based smart RF energy harvesting is proposed, which reduces the total number of RF energy transmitters required to cover a certain area. An energy harvesting development kit for wireless sensors by Powercast Corporation is being used for implementation and analysis of this scheme.