Here is a fun exercise. How many automobile sensors, indicators, and other distributed functions could you conduct with an RFID-like passive, wireless interface? Below a few suggestions to get you thinking.
PURA Travel-Grant Winners, Hiba and Evan
Hiba Murali and Evan Shi have won Presidential Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) travel grants from Georgia Tech to present their RF energy-harvesting work at the IEEE International Conference on RFID 2018 in Orlando, FL next month. These student researchers have been studying transparent rectenna technology for harvesting microwave power beamed from space. The work could enable low-cost collections stations for space solar power, delivering green energy to the grid while allowing multiple uses for the collection site. Congratulations, Evan and Hiba!
POW Exchange with the FCC
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Communication with FCC’s
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Here is an interesting conversation that the GTPG had with the US Federal Communications Commission’s Engineering Office in 2008 regarding the legality of using Power-Optimized Waveforms for transmitting wireless power in unlicensed bands. Basically, after fielding the question “Is this transmission scheme legal?” several hundred times at conferences and talks, we thought it best to set the record straight. The answer is “yes!” — straight from the horse’s mouth.
Marshall Defends PhD
Blake Marshall defended his PhD dissertation entitled, “STAGGERED PATTERN ENERGY HARVESTING AND RETRO-DIRECTIVE BACKSCATTER FOR PASSIVE RFID TAGS” on Thursday, 12 December 2017. This work invented a new class of antenna structures that exhibit retrodirectivity and optimal energy harvesting parameters. Such structures are crucial to building next-generation internet-of-things nodes, which can harvest energy and backscatter information with extraordinarily low power. Blake was a graduate of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and received his MS and PhD with the GTPG. For the last several years, Blake has worked at Apple Computer in the bay area. Somehow, he found time to finish his PhD and have his first child. [Read more…]