From RF Energy Harvester Models to Signal and System Designs
1 Fundamentals of Wireless Information and Power Transfer: From RF Energy Harvester Models to Signal and System Designs Bruno Clerckx, Senior Member, IEEE, Rui Zhang, Fellow, IEEE, Robert Schober, Fellow, IEEE, Derrick Wing Kwan Ng, Senior Member, IEEE, Dong In Kim, Senior Member, IEEE, and H. Vincent Poor, Fellow, IEEE Abstract—Radio waves carry both energy and information I. INTRODUCTION simultaneously. Nevertheless, Radio-Frequency (RF) transmission of these quantities have traditionally been treated separately. Wireless communications via Radio-Frequency (RF) radi- Currently, we are experiencing a paradigm shift in wireless ation has been around for more than a century and has sig- network design, namely unifying wireless transmission of in- formation and power so as to make the best use of the RF nificantly shaped our society in the past 40 years. Wireless is spectrum and radiations as well as the network infrastructure however not limited to communications. Wireless powering of for the dual purpose of communicating and energizing. In devices using near-field Inductive Power Transfer has become this paper, we review and discuss recent progress on laying a reality with several commercially available products and the foundations of the envisioned dual purpose networks by standards. However, its range is severely limited (less than one establishing a signal theory and design for Wireless Information and Power Transmission (WIPT) and identifying the fundamental meter). On the other hand, far-field Wireless Power Transfer tradeoff between conveying information and power wirelessly. (WPT) via RF (as in wireless communication) could be used We start with an overview of WIPT challenges and technologies, over longer ranges.
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