Ambient Radio Frequency Research Articles

Physical Layer Security Analysis in Ambient Backscatter Communication With Node Mobility and Imperfect Channel Estimation

Ambient backscatter communication (AmBc) is a modern communication technique that permits smart devices to transfer data with the aid of ambient radio frequency (RF) radiation. This letter investigates the issue of eavesdropper (ED) attacks on multi-tag AmBc systems. In particular, we explore a realistic scenario in which both the reader and the ED are in motion and analyze the influence of their motion on the AmBc system’s secrecy performance when channel estimation is imperfect. Specifically, an analytical expression of secrecy outage probability (SOP) and an asymptotic SOP is derived. Also, the simulation results are shown to confirm the analytical expressions.

Capacity Analysis for Tunnel Diode Amplifier Assisted Ambient Backscatter Communications

The ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) technology addresses connectivity, cost, and congestion bottlenecks for the Internet of Things (IoT) deployment. AmBC, by avoiding a dedicated power infrastructure and carrier emitter, allows tags to communicate by simply reflecting ambient radio frequency (RF) signals to the reader. Thus, the tag can operate in the low-maintenance, battery-free mode and be powered with energy harvesting. However, a fundamental bottleneck is the limited communication range. A novel solution is integrating tunnel diode amplifiers into tags to enhance their backscattered signal power and thus extend the communication range. This paper studies that solution and investigates the resulting capacity performance. Specifically, we first develop the system’s mathematical model, elaborate on the tunnel diode’s amplification mechanism, and derive its reflection gain. Subsequently, we derive the closed-form channel capacity and propose a reader-tag distance adjustment scheme to improve the system performance. Finally, simulation results corroborate our theoretical results. They show that the tunnel diode amplifier can significantly increase the system capacity by an order of magnitude when the tag receives less than -30 dBm of incident RF signal power. They also demonstrate a significant increase in the communication range.

A Compact Dual-Band Four-Port Ambient RF Energy Harvester With High-Sensitivity, High-Efficiency, and Wide Power Range

The design of an ambient radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting system is introduced to replace the battery of the mass Internet-of-Things devices. This system can achieve high sensitivity with high efficiency over a wide input power range by optimizing the differential-drive cross-coupled (DDCC) rectifier and the load. The impedance of the dual-band four-port loop antenna array is directly conjugated to match with the rectifier, which reduces insertion loss of the matching network to improve efficiency. At 915 and 945 MHz for ISM and GSM bands, the rectenna can achieve high sensitivity of −30 dBm with 22% and 24% efficiency, high efficiency of 65% and 48% with −20-dBm input power, and a wide input power range from −30 to −18 dBm with 22–65% and 24–48% efficiency. The dual-band design explores the frequency diversity to harvest more RF energy from the environment, while the cross-shaped antenna array utilizes the space diversity to harvest RF energy from different directions with a compact size of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.15\lambda \times 0.15\lambda $ </tex-math></inline-formula> per antenna element (where <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda $ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the free space wavelength at 915 MHz). This new harvesting system can provide output dc power of 21.4 and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2.95~\mu \text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> in real-world outdoor and indoor ambient environments, respectively.

Dual-band ambient energy harvesting systems based on metamaterials for self-powered indoorwireless sensor nodes

AbstractIn this study, we present a comprehensive dual-band ambient radio-frequency (RF) energy harvesting system, consisting of rectenna and power management circuit, to harvest energy from 2.45 and 5.8 GHz Wi-Fi. The rectenna employs a metamaterial antenna based on a split-ring resonator, which possesses omni-directional radiation pattern at both frequencies and compact size (0.18λ × 0.25λ at 2.45 GHz). The dual-band rectifier yields the highest efficiency of 42% at 2.45 GHz and 1 dBm input power, 30% at 5.8 GHz and − 7 dBm input power. The maximum RF-DC efficiency for each band is 72% at − 5 dBm and 27% at − 2 dBm, respectively. The power management circuit, consisting of a storing capacitor and a boost converter, is integrated to produce a stable, sufficient output voltage. The energy harvesting system, with its comprehensiveness, is suitable for supplying low-power wireless sensor nodes for indoor applications.

Quad-Band Rectenna for Ambient Radio Frequency (RF) Energy Harvesting.

RF power is broadly available in both urban and semi-urban areas and thus exhibits as a promising candidate for ambient energy scavenging sources. In this research, a high-efficiency quad-band rectenna is designed for ambient RF wireless energy scavenging over the frequency range from 0.8 to 2.5 GHz. Firstly, the detailed characteristics (i.e., available frequency bands and associated power density levels) of the ambient RF power are studied and analyzed. The data (i.e., RF survey results) are then applied to aid the design of a new quad-band RF harvester. A newly designed impedance matching network (IMN) with an additional L-network in a third-branch of dual-port rectifier circuit is familiarized to increase the performance and RF-to-DC conversion efficiency of the harvester with comparatively very low input RF power density levels. A dual-polarized multi-frequency bow-tie antenna is designed, which has a wide bandwidth (BW) and is miniature in size. The dual cross planer structure internal triangular shape and co-axial feeding are used to decrease the size and enhance the antenna performance. Consequently, the suggested RF harvester is designed to cover all available frequency bands, including part of most mobile phone and wireless local area network (WLAN) bands in Malaysia, while the optimum resistance value for maximum dc rectification efficiency (up to 48%) is from 1 to 10 kΩ. The measurement result in the ambient environment (i.e., both indoor and outdoor) depicts that the new harvester is able to harvest dc voltage of 124.3 and 191.0 mV, respectively, which can be used for low power sensors and wireless applications.

Enhancing Ambient Backscatter Communication Utilizing Coherent and Non-Coherent Space-Time Codes

Ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) leverages the existing ambient radio frequency (RF) environment to implement communication with battery-free devices. The key challenge in the development of AmBC is the very weak RF signals backscattered by the AmBC Tag. To overcome this challenge, we propose the use of orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBC) by incorporating multiple antennas at the Tag as well as at the Reader. Our approach considers both coherent and non-coherent OSTBC so that systems with and without channel state information can be considered. To allow the application of OSTBC, we develop an approximate linearized and normalized multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel model for the AmBC system. This MIMO channel model is shown to be accurate for a wide range of useful operating conditions. Two coherent detectors and a non-coherent detector are also provided based on the proposed AmBC channel model. Simulation results show that enhanced bit error rate performance can be achieved, demonstrating the benefit of using multiple antennas at the Tag as well as the Reader.

Ambient backscatter communication with mobile RF source for IoT-based applications

Ambient backscatter communication (AmBc) has been recently transpired as a promising communication methodology for battery-free internet of things (IoT)-based applications. This paper investigates an AmBc system with a mobile ambient radio-frequency (RF) source such as mobile wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) access point. Mobility of the source causes the channels between source to tag and source to the reader to experience time-selective fading. This dynamic nature of channels is modeled using a first-order autoregressive (AR-1) process. The closed-form expressions for the bit-error-rate (BER) and thresholds are obtained for maximum-likelihood (ML) and energy detector (ED) with imperfect channel state information (CSI) at the reader. Further, the closed-form expressions for outage probability and channel capacity are also obtained. It is found that the overall system performance worsens with increase in mobility of the nodes. The results are validated using Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations.

High-Efficiency Triple-Band RF-to-DC Rectifier Primary Design for RF Energy-Harvesting Systems

Radio Frequency (RF) energy harvesting has been emerged as a potentially reliable method to replace the costly and difficult to maintain source of low-power wireless sensor networks. A plethora of dual-band rectifier designs has been proposed in the literature operating in various frequency bands. In this paper, a triple-band RF-to-DC rectifier that operates in the frequency bands of LoRaWAN, GSM-900, and WiFi 2.4 GHz is presented. The system is composed of an impedance-matching circuit, an RF-to-DC rectifier, that converts the ambient RF energy into DC voltage able to feed low-power devices, and an output load. The proposed system resonates at three different frequencies of 866 MHz, 948 MHz and 2423 MHz, which fall within the aforementioned frequency bands of interest. The feasible solution of the proposed system was based on a dual-band rectifier operating in the frequency bands of LoRaWAN and GSM-900. A series of shunt stubs was utilized in the initial design to form the feasible solution of the proposed system. The proposed triple-band rectifier was optimized using a powerful optimization algorithm, i.e., the genetic algorithm. The overall system exhibited improved characteristics compared to the initial design in terms of its resonance. Numerical results demonstrated that the overall system exhibited an efficiency of 81% with 3.23 V of the output voltage, for an input power of 0 dBm and a load of 13 kOhm.

Joint Optimization for Traffic-Offloading and Resource-Allocation Over RF-Powered Backscatter Mobile Wireless Networks

We develop the joint optimization schemes for traffic-offloading and resource-allocation over radio-frequency (RF) powered backscatter-based mobile wireless networks, where a macro-cell base station (BS), several small-cell access points (SAPs), and multiple energy harvesting (EH) mobile users (MUs) co-exist. Optimizing MUs' network access (via traffic-offloading) and system resource-allocation, we aim to minimize MUs' energy consumption by using low-energy consumption of backscatter. First, we consider the scenarios when short-range ambient backscatter (AB) communication (e.g., over several meters) is employed, enabling MUs to access nearby SAPs via ambient backscatter RF signals for data transmission. Using the alternating directions method of multipliers (ADMM), we develop a distributed traffic-offloading and resource-allocation scheme. Then, we focus on traffic-offloading and resource-allocation by adopting the concurrent AB (CAB) transmission, where multiple MUs can backscatter data concurrently to further reduce energy consumption. Moreover, we also use long-range bi-static backscatter (BB) communication (e.g., over 270-meter distance) for data transmission between MUs and BS, and then MUs can convey data by backscattering RF signals radiated from dedicated carrier emitters. Then, we study the joint traffic-offloading and resource-allocation when AB and BB communications are adopted by MUs accessing SAPs and BS, respectively. Finally, the numerical analyses validate and evaluate our developed schemes, showing their good convergence performances and significant reduction in energy consumption of MUs through backscatter communications.

Broadband High-Efficiency RF Rectifier With a Cross-Shaped Match Stub of Two One-Eighth-Wavelength Transmission Lines

This letter presents a broadband rectifier that can be applied to harvest ambient radio frequency (RF) energy. The matching network consists of three-stage transmission lines. A cross-shaped match stub of two one-eighth-wavelength transmission lines is proposed to realize efficient and broadband impedance compression. The proposed circuit has been optimized and manufactured, and the measured results show that the rectifier can achieve high RF-to-dc conversion efficiency and broadband characteristics. The simulation and measured results were basically consistent. When the input power is 8 dBm and the terminal load is 1.6 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{k}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> , a bandwidth of 81% (1–2.35 GHz) with an efficiency above 50% and a bandwidth 69% (1–2.05 GHz) with an efficiency above 60% are achieved. The highest conversion efficiency of the test circuit is up to 73.2% at an input power of 8 dBm. Moreover, when the input power changes from 1 to 11 dBm, the efficiency of the rectifier circuit is always above 50%.

Exploring the Boundaries of Ambient RF Energy Harvesting With LoRaWAN

Environmental monitoring is an important application for wireless sensing devices. Battery power requires in-the-field replacement, and the chemicals involved are environmentally harmful, so harvested energy is a useful alternative. Previous research has shown the feasibility of powering LoRaWAN sensors using high-energy ambient or wireless transfer power sources. This article extends this work by exploring the boundaries of using low-energy radio-frequency (RF) ambient sources. Ambient RF energy harvesting is an attractive option, but it is more challenging due to the low levels of energy density typically available.Using an analytical LoRaWAN device model and RF energy data collected from around the world, a systematic investigation of the design and environmental space is performed. The main contribution of this article is to identify the boundaries of feasibility for powering LoRaWAN sensor nodes from ambient RF energy. These boundaries include design and environmental factors.

Dynamic Ambient RF Energy Density Measurements of Montreal for Battery-Free IoT Sensor Network Planning

This work summarizes an outdoor dynamic measurement of ambient radiofrequency (RF) power density in the core areas of Montreal city, which can eventually be exploited for possible battery-free Internet of Things (IoT) sensor network planning. The measurement covers a frequency range of 400-2700 MHz. The power density along major streets, roads, and highways is captured and analyzed, which differs from previous stationary measurements. Results indicate that cellular communication bands (GSM/LTE850 and LTE700) are the best choice for RF energy recycling in downtown (populated) areas. The largest average power levels of GSM/LTE850 and LTE700 bands are -35.50 and -36.95 dBm, respectively. In contrast, in suburban areas where cellular communication signals are generally weak, the digital television band with a peak level of -47.68 dBm presents the largest among all frequency bands. Moreover, one separate measurement at a fixed location is conducted on a typical workday to study the effects of foot traffic on ambient RF power density. Results illustrate that no obvious fluctuations are detected during this daytime measurement. For example, both average power levels of GSM/LTE850 and LTE700 remain at a relatively stable level of -25 dBm throughout the measurement. With the advance of far-field wireless power transfer and backscattering techniques, ambient RF power-enabled battery-free IoT sensors are feasible and will contribute to the planning and implementation of a smarter and greener city.

Beamforming Design in Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output Symbiotic Radio Backscatter Systems

Symbiotic radio (SR) backscatter is a possible low-power wireless communication technique for future Internet of Things devices. In this letter, a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) SR backscatter system is proposed, where the secondary multi-antenna transmission from the backscatter device (BD) to the receiver is riding on the primary multi-antenna transmission from the transmitter to the receiver. We investigate the beamforming design optimization problem which maximizes the sum capacity of primary and secondary transmissions under the capacity constraint of secondary transmission. In the MIMO SR backscatter system, each antenna of the SR BD reflects its received ambient radio frequency signals from all the transmitting antennas of the transmitter, which causes that the globally optimal solution is difficult to obtain. Here, we derive an algorithm to obtain the capacity upper bound. Furthermore, considering both primary and secondary transmissions, we propose an exact penalty method based locally optimal solution. Simulation results display that the proposed exact penalty method based locally optimal solution achieves the sum capacity which is close to the upper bound.

Investigation on energy harvesting enabled device-to-device networks in presence of co-channel interference

Energy harvesting from ambient radio-frequency (RF) sources has been a novel approach for extending the lifetime of wireless networks. In this paper, a cooperative device-to-device (D2D) system with the aid of energy-constrained relay is considered. The relays are assumed to be able to harvest energy from information signal and co-channel interference (CCI) signals broadcasted by nearby traditional cellular users and forward the source’s signal to its desired destination (D2D user) utilizing amplify-andforward (AF) relaying protocol. Time switching protocol (TSR) and power splitting protocol (PSR) are proposed to assist energy harvesting and information processing at the relay. The proposed approaches are applied in a model with three nodes including the source (D2D user), the relay and the destination (D2D user), the system throughput is investigated in terms of the ergodic capacity and the outage capacity, where the analytical results are obtained approximately. Our numerical results verify the our derivations, and also points out the impact of CCI on system performance. Finally, this investigation provide fundamental design guidelines for selecting hardware of energy harvesting circuits that satisfies the requirements of a practical cooperative D2D system.

Optimizing Energy Harvesting Decode-and-Forward Relays With Decoding Energy Costs and Energy Storage

Energy harvesting (EH) relay communication systems with decoding energy costs in multiple block cases have not been widely studied. This paper investigates the relay network with a decode-and-forward relay powered by EH. Unlike other works, we consider the relay with energy decoding costs which harvests random energy from both a dedicated transmitter and other ambient radio-frequency (RF) sources. The EH relay adopts a harvest-receive-forward time-switching architecture. We optimize the time fractions of the three phases and the reception rate at the relay to maximize the offline throughput for single and multiple block cases under two EH scenarios. The multi-block optimization problem constitutes a complex non-convex problem, which we decouple into a single block problem with two auxiliary variables determined by an outer optimization problem. The original problem is finally solved at the cost of linear optimization after series of tricks. Several conclusions are derived: (i) energy storage is necessary (unnecessary) when the relay harvests energy from the transmitter (ambient RF sources), (ii) the optimal reception rate remains unchanged, while the optimal time fractions vary with the energy harvested from ambient RF sources leading to different average throughput. We give numerical simulations to verify our theoretical analysis.

Experimental Evaluation of RF Waveform Designs for Wireless Power Transfer Using Software Defined Radio

The possibility to harvest energy from ambient radio-frequency (RF) sources has intrigued humankind for the past several decades. In this context, there has been a tremendously growing research interest in the field of wireless power transfer (WPT) using the RF range of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the aspect of real-time energy harvesting (EH) via different types of waveform designs such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), square, triangular, sinusoidal, and sawtooth. We make use of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and a Powercast P21XXCSR-EVB EH module to carry out the experiments on a practical device to assess performance. Specifically, we are interested in obtaining some insights based on the comparison between the aforementioned waveform designs from the perspectives of the separation distance between the USRP and P21XXCSR-EVB EH module, and power emission via USRP. In this vein, we perform additional subsequent experiments after reporting the practical effectiveness of the OFDM waveform, which also follows our intuitive analysis. Correspondingly, we study the effect on WPT with variable USRP transmit power, the separation distance between the USRP and EH antennas, number of OFDM sub-carriers, and multipath setting. As an application of OFDM, the effectiveness of fifth generation-new radio (5G-NR) and long-term evolution (LTE) waveforms are also tested for the WPT mechanism. The demonstration of the EH is provided in terms of the above-mentioned investigation metrics while seeking the best waveform to support WPT.

Quad-Band Multiport Rectenna for RF Energy Harvesting in Ambient Environment

This article proposes a quad-band multiport harvester that can scavenge ambient radio frequency (RF) energy of available frequency bands (i.e. GSM-900, GSM-1800, 3G and Wi-Fi) efficiently. This design's novelty is the use of frequency-dependent multiple antenna ports that enables the harvester to fully exploit all available frequency bands, spatial diversity, and polarization for maximizing the harvested RF energy at a lower power density level in an ambient environment. Indistinctly, the proposed antenna consists of 8-port which maintain 0.33λ×0.33λ (i.e. wavelength λ calculated at 0.9 GHz in free space) average area per port and has achieved more than 35% relative bandwidth (BW) with a maximum gain of 6.5 dBi to cover the selected frequency bands. Besides, the proposed quad-band rectifier with a multi-stub impedance matching network is feasible for RF harvesting over the available ambient frequency bands. The proposed rectenna's measurement results show that the generated average dc output voltage is increased up to 0.750 V at a low RF input power density of -27 dBm for a load resistance of 2.11 kΩ. The overall dc rectification efficiency of the 8-port pixel harvester is also assessed and depicted to be 66.52% when the resultant RF input power density level is -27 dBm. Measurement in an ambient outdoor and controlled indoor environment is also conducted, demonstrating that the new 8-port pixel RF harvester can produce a dc output voltage of 0.797 V which is greater than some of the reference RF harvesters.

A Dual-Band Ambient Energy Harvesting Rectenna Design for Wireless Power Communications

In this paper, a long-range dual-band rectenna for harvesting ambient radio frequency (RF) energy from GSM/900 and GSM/1800 is presented. Theoretical analysis of the proposed dual-band impedance matching network (IMN) is conducted using a modified <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Pi $ </tex-math></inline-formula> –section matching network (MN). The RF-rectifier is integrated with a dual-band inverted-F monopole antenna. The rectenna circuit complexity is minimized by introducing a dual-band IMN, which plays a significant role in improving the harvester RF-to-dc power conversion efficiency (PCE). Measurement results of the proposed design achieved a peak RF-to-dc PCE of 12.93% and 8.0% for an input power of −30 dBm at 0.9 GHz, and 1.8 GHz, respectively. The RF harvester ambiance measurement attained an output dc voltage of 0.374 V. The circuit generates 0.747 V using a low-powered bq25504-674 evaluation module (EVM). Thus, adequate energy management of the proposed rectenna can be used to power many low-powered devices from the harvested ambient RF energy.

Evidence for a connection between COVID-19 and exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless communications including 5G

COVID-19 public health policy has focused on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its effects on human health while environmental factors have been largely ignored. In considering the epidemiological triad (agent-host-environment) applicable to all disease, we investigated a possible environmental factor in the COVID-19 pandemic: ambient radiofrequency radiation from wireless communication systems including microwaves and millimeter waves. Read more at JCTRes.com

Possibilities and Challenges of Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This paper presents investigation on the possibilities and challenges of harvesting ambient Radio Frequency Energy (RFE) at Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania. The Radio Frequency (RF) signals were measured using a Rohde and Schwarz FSC 3 spectrum analyzer observing available frequencies with their respective power. Among several RF signals received, the most powerful signals observed were; 800 MHz, 950 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2400 MHz, having average signal strengths of about -30.29 dBm, -35.94 dBm, -42.90 dBm and -30.42 dBm respectively. The power possessed within these frequencies were suitable to be harvested due to their signal strengths, an overall power average of -34.89dBm was obtained and a multi narrowband harvester was designed and simulated using real-time values on Keysight’s Advanced Design System (ADS) 2019. The simulation results confirm a promising possibility of harvesting RF energy to power ultra-low-power devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) and beyond.