Ultra-low-power Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) compatible backscatter communication and energy harvesting for battery-free wearable devices
Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis explores new wireless power and backscatter communication architectures for ultra-low-power wireless sensors and other devices such as wearables.We first present measurement, analysis and harvesting approaches for extracting energy from 2.4 GHz wireless communication signals, including an approach for powering a relatively high power sensor in burst mode at an input power level of -15 dBm.We present the first backscatter-based data uplink approach that achieves compatibility between backscatter devices and billions of completely unmodified standard wireless devices using the Bluetooth Low Energy standard.We show that this data uplink approach can communicate with BLE receivers with a radio communication efficiency of 28.4 pJ/bit.This is over 100x lower energy per bit than conventional BLE transmitters.One microcontroller based implementation consumes over 6x less power than the best commercially-available Bluetooth transmitters, and can leverage both modulated and unmodulated carriers to provide the backscatter uplink.This allows us to transform one BLE signal as a carrier source for another BLE-Backscatter signal.We investigate the range of the BLE-Backscatter system in both bistatic and monostatic, full-duplex application scenarios.The range analysis considers the BLE iii a great situation.I appreciate everything you've done for me from late night edits, to help with framing research goals, to your endless patience and understanding, and general guidance over the last 5 years.
Author: Joshua F. Ensworth
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2598708732