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Title: Applications of Additive Manufacturing for Ambient RF Energy Harvesting
Committee:
Dr. Tentzeris, Advisor
Dr. Peterson, Chair
Dr. Durgin
Abstract:
The objective of the proposed research is to overcome the fundamental challenges in RF energy harvesting and establish it as a reliable energy source for autonomous systems. Toward the research goal, this research proposes two solutions utilizing additive manufacturing: a wearable RF energy harvester and a hybrid RF solar harvester. The study requires a careful selection and characterization of an ambient RF energy source, the development of a fabrication technique to create a durable wearable harvester using a low-cost flexible substrate, and the design of an efficient RF-DC converter circuit for wearable applications. Also, all this effort targets to the novel design and development of a hybrid RF solar harvester device including the design and fabrication of a solar antenna, an RF-DC harvester with DC a combining circuit, and a self-powered power management circuit. As a preliminary result, this proposed research managed to develop both the wearable RF energy harvester and the hybrid RF solar harvesting system. The measurements indicated that the maximum output DC power of about 150 mW, which is sufficient to power a typical micro-controller module from cold start condition, is available from the wearable flexible RF energy harvester. Compared to typical far-field ambient RF energy harvesting which yield output DC power below 10 μW with RF-DC conversion efficiency below 50 %, the RF harvester in this research can generate an amount of power more than 10000 times greater with a conversion efficiency more than 30 % higher. Another potential application of additive manufacturing, which is for hybrid RF solar harvesting, also indicated promising findings. From the operation test of bq25504 power management circuit, the hybrid RF solar operation can reduce the required time to charge a capacitor by 30 % and the required RF input power to less than half.
