CIF: Unified SWIPT: Emerging Models and Design Strategies

Radio waves can carry information and energy simultaneously. Radio-Frequency (RF) transmission of these quantities, however, has traditionally been treated separately. Information transmission via RF has been around for more than a century and has significantly shaped our wirelessly connected society. On the other hand, far-field wireless power transfer via RF has not found as much success, despite the possibilities for powering low-energy devices, such as those motivated by the Internet of Things, in which billions of smart connected objects that monitor structure health, logistics, security, healthcare, and agriculture are envisioned. Prior work typically assumes separate receivers for energy harvesting and information decoding. This project challenges the conventional approach by introducing unified receivers that rectify power and demodulate information from a composite signal using the same low-power analog hardware, and focuses on optimizing the components with new models and design methods. The investigators are dedicated to workforce development, mentoring students, integrating theory with practice, and extending the impact of their research and teaching to a larger audience. The integration of wireless power and wireless communications receivers brings new challenges and opportunities and calls for the integration of concepts from information theory, communication theory, circuit theory, signal processing, optimization, and experimentation. These challenges will be addressed by focusing on three specific goals: 1) Developing analytical models based on differential equations for truly unified Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transmission receivers without local oscillators. 2) Fundamental bounds and system design of Unified- Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transmission under memoryless circuits, operating in the low data rate regime. 3) Fundamental bounds and system design of Unified-Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transmission with memory, operating in the high data rate regime. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.