Wireless Power Transfer for IoT Devices - A Review

Developments and applications of battery powered devices faces unprecedented technical challenges due to the limitations of low power density, high cost, heavy weight, etc. Wireless sensors are recently emerging to provide solutions for a number of solutions in ordinary homes, industries, health care and communications, just to name a few. On the other hand, Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) technology is gaining increasing interest in 5 G networks and the Internet of Things (IoT) due to scarce energy resources and high-power consumption. The authors through this paper, present an overview of WPT techniques focusing on working mechanisms and technical challenges. We focus on WPT systems and explore current major research topics and discuss future trends and development. This is used by the authors to focus on the recent studies that are specific to near-field WPT and radio frequency energy harvesting, putting more emphasis on the greener energy harvesting techniques and low power. We also look at existing and possible techniques of powering IoT devices wirelessly.