Energy harvesting for autonomous wireless sensors and RFID's

Energy harvesting technologies are receiving significant interest from industry and academia as they provide a foundation, an enabling technology towards the realization of `zero-power' wireless sensors and implementing the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. The principles of commonly used energy harvesting technologies such as solar, piezoelectric, thermal and electromagnetic are listed and design challenges and novel technologies and materials, such as paper, textiles, and large volume inkjet printing fabrication are presented. Hybrid-multiple technology harvesters are discussed and the development of low profile antennas and rectennas, integrating an electromagnetic radiator with solar cells and a thermoelectric generator are presented. Optimal signals suitable for wireless power transmission are discussed.