Charging Time Characterization for Wireless RF Energy Transfer

Wireless energy transfer to the onboard energy storage element using dedicated radio frequency (RF) energy source has the potential to provide sustained network operations by recharging the sensor nodes on demand. To determine the efficiency of RF energy transfer (RFET), characterization of recharging process is needed. Different from classical capacitor-charging operation, the incident RF waves provide constant power (instead of constant voltage or current) to the storage element, which requires a new theoretical framework for analyzing the charging behavior. This work develops the charging equation for replenishing an energy-depleted storage element by RFET. Since the remaining energy on a sensor node is a random parameter, the RF charging time distribution for a given residual voltage distribution is also derived. The analytical model is validated through hardware experiments and simulations.