Wireless Power Transfer to Embedded Sensors

Reference #: 00835

The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for this technology

Potential Applications:

• Wireless embedded sensors for infrastructure monitoring in bridges, buildings, pipelines, power lines, and dams
• Hazardous waste processing and removal facilities
• Nuclear waste monitoring
• Biomedical applications

Advantages and Benefits:

• Futuristic low-cost solutions that can be embedded within a RFID infrastructure (when the structure itself is built)
• Dual-function humidity sensor antenna that can be easily integrated within existing or future wireless transceiver modules

Invention Description:

Dr. Mohammod Ali’s research team has invented an infrastructure for sending wireless power to sensors that are located in hard-to-reach areas. The proposed sensors are completely different from present day RFID (radio frequency identification device) tags, which only operate when a reader sends a signal to energize them.

Dr. Ali’s proposed sensors are smart, battery-operated wireless sensors. When placed in appropriate locations of the structure, smart sensors measure environmental factors such as strain, humidity, acceleration, and then communicate such data to other sensors and/or to a supervisory base station. Denominated "smart sensors," these sensors operate independently and are capable of processing information and making decisions.

Dr. Ali’s long term vision of a SHM system is to have techniques that mimic biological organisms. The structure will be instrumented with a dense network of embedded wireless sensors. When damage is identified on the structure, the sensor network will react the same way that the human body reacts to pain – by sending a warning signal to the base station for personnel to review critical measurement data and take reparative action.