image: The distributed microwave wireless system possesses the characteristics of arbitrarily transformative ability, battery-free operation, and excellent reliability, which can serve as the basic node for future ubiquitous connections.
Credit: ©Science China Press
This study is led by Dr. Wei-Bing Lu, Dr. Tie Jun Cui (State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University) and Dr. Cheng-Hui Li (State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Nanjing University). The multidisciplinary joint research team has proposed a transformative and battery-less wireless sensing system for constituting passive and maintenance-free Internet of Things (IoT) networks.
“With the rapid expansion of the IoT network, billions of wireless terminals need to be deployed on targets of various shapes, such as plants, industrial pipelines, and even the human body. This poses significant challenges for the deployment, power supply, and long-term maintenance of wireless systems. Specifically, traditional rigid wireless systems struggle to adapt to various irregular surfaces, posing significant challenges for the ubiquitous deployment of IoT networks. Moreover, powering massive distributed wireless terminals is a critical challenge, as connecting power cables to each individual node is obviously impractical. We aim to develop a distributed wireless system that not only exhibits excellent compatibility but also possesses battery-free operation and maintenance-free characteristics” Wei-Bing says.
Drawing inspiration from the body structure of animals, the research team utilized thermal-stimulus responsive material with tunable stiffness as the “skeleton” to support fragile microwave devices and electronic systems. Furthermore, researchers synthesized a “skin-like” soft polymer with self-healable properties, excellent strength, and chemical stability, which provides a durable encapsulation for the proposed system against contact force, mechanical damage, or liquid corrosion. Through the biomimetic strategy, the wireless system combines exceptional reliability and electromagnetic stability, along with flexibility approaching that of flexible systems.
To address power supply issues, researchers incorporated the ultra-low-power backscatter communication scheme into the system configuration, which allows the bio-inspired system to modulate and reflect ambient electromagnetic waves for wireless data transmission. As a result, the power consumption of the system can be significantly reduced. Building on this, the research team devised an efficient solar-microwave hybrid energy harvester and intelligent power management scheme to capture ambient electromagnetic energy. By modulating and harvesting ambient electromagnetic waves, the bio-inspired system supports long-range wireless sensing and communication without relying on Li-batteries or power delivery cables in various environments, whether indoors or outdoors.
Multidisciplinary innovation enables the proposed bio-inspired system to be deployed almost anywhere and support reliable, battery-free wireless communication and sensing, effectively overcoming the scientific challenges in IoT terminal deployment and wireless network expansion. This work provides a new technical approach for future passive IoT networks, offering significant application potential in areas such as agricultural monitoring, smart cities, wireless communication, and robotics.
See the article:
A bio-inspired microwave wireless system for constituting passive and maintenance-free IoT networks
https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwae435
Journal
National Science Review