IEEE Open Journal of the Solid-State Circuits Society Special Section on Low-Power RF Circuits and Systems

Radios are everywhere. They allow us to watch terrestrial TV broadcasts, connect our cars to satellite-based navigation systems, and connect our computers, phones, and other smart devices to the Internet. As the Internet of Things continues to proliferate, radios will start to connect food packaging, pets, environmental monitors, and all sorts of other things to the Internet as well. A large percentage of these emerging applications will operate on either very small batteries or small energy harvesters, and thus must support all application requirements on very tight power budgets. Since radios often dominate the power consumption of low-power sensing nodes, anything we can do to help reduce the power consumption of wireless communications will help enable these new applications. Of course, this should be accomplished thoughtfully, with careful consideration of coexistence, standards, regulations, security, privacy, and other application-level constraints.