Experiment of Power Supply Method for WLAN Sensor Using Both Energy Harvesting and Microwave Power Transmission

Abstract

This paper proposes to improve effectiveness of supplying a sensor with energy using microwave power transmission (MPT) and energy harvesting (EH). The MPT duration should be as short as possible to avoid serious interference between the MPT and wireless local area network data transmission when co-channel operation of both microwave power transmission (MPT) and wireless data transmissions is performed. To shorten the MPT duration, we use multiple power sources such as an MPT source and an EH source to supply a sensor with power. Here, an overcharge or an energy shortage could occur at the sensor if the power supplied by both the MPT and EH sources is not adjusted appropriately. To solve this problem, the power supplied by multiple sources should be estimated precisely. In this paper, we propose a scheme for estimating the power supplied by multiple sources on the basis of an existing MPT scheduling system and then conducted an experiment using the scheme. From the experimental results, it is confirmed to estimate the power supplied by multiple sources successfully. In addition, the required MPT duration when the EH source is used is reduced compared to that when it is not used. Moreover, it is confirmed that the sensor station successfully estimates the power supplied by an MPT source and that by an EH source and adequately configures the MPT duration.