Sensor Systems for the Batteryless Internet of Things

Dear Colleagues,

The predicted, massive proliferation of Internet of things sensors will require many wireless sensor nodes to operate with no, or very small amounts of, harvested power for both sensor data acquisition and the communication of sensor data. While there are many sensor architectures that require relatively small amounts of energy, duty cycling can be used to drive the power consumption lower, particularly for conventional radio communications, which often require significantly more power than sensor operation. However, recently, there has been widespread interest in backscatter communication systems, which reduce the power required for radio communication by several orders of magnitude. Such improvements will result in a paradigm shift in the operation of wireless sensor nodes, with the energy consumption of the sensors and data converters becoming significant and the overhead of communication being vastly reduced so that the approach of bursty, compressed or averaged data will no longer be effective.

This Special Issue targets scientific contributions addressing the challenges of ultra-low-power wireless sensor systems. While studies of sub-systems and components to achieve such systems are of interest, we particularly welcome submissions which address the overall sensor system and the integration of sensors and communication to reduce the complexity and power consumption of the wireless sensor node.

In this context, we are envisaging works addressing one or more of the following wireless sensor topics:

• Ultra-low-power sensor modalities;
• Low-power sensor interface circuitry, particularly where this directly interfaces digital or analog wireless communication;
• Energy-generating sensors;
• Latching sensors with the ability to operate without a power source, for later readout;
• Multiplexing of simple backscatter sensor nodes;
• Energy harvesting, delivery and storage for wireless sensor systems;
• Data processing strategies where ultra-low-power and low-bandwidth (backscatter) RF communication is employed.

Dr. Michael Crisp
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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