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Leveraging UAVs for Passive RF Charging and Ultra-low-power Wake-Up of

Ground Sensors

Article  in  IEEE Sensors Letters · March 2020

DOI: 10.1109/LSENS.2020.2982803

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 VOL. 4, NO. 5, MAY 2020 1500304

Sensor phenomena

Leveraging UAVs for Passive RF Charging and Ultralowpower Wake-Up of

Ground Sensors
Ahmed Abed Benbuk1 , Nour Kouzayha1,2 , Aline Eid1 , Joseph Costantine1 ,
Zaher Dawy1 , Fabio Paonessa3 , and Giuseppe Virone3
1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
2 Lebanese International University, Beirut 146404, Lebanon
3 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni, 10129 Torino,

Italy

Manuscript received February 4, 2020; revised March 2, 2020; accepted March 19, 2020. Date of publication March 23, 2020; date of current version May
11, 2020.

Abstract—In this letter, we design and implement a radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting and wake-up system that
scavenges a 2.4-GHz signal from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The signal transmitted by the UAV is harvested and
rectified to dc voltage to power a sensor on the ground. Additionally, the UAV modulates the transmitted signal to encode
an address that triggers a particular sensor from sleep mode to active mode. The proposed system exhibits high sensitivity
to low power levels. In fact, charging can be initiated from input power levels as low as −18.2 dBm, and a sensor can
be triggered starting at power levels that are as low as −40 dBm. The designed system relies on passive components to
boost the received signal to 4.5 V at the output. Moreover, the address detector is characterized by a current consumption
of 160 nA in idle mode. The proposed solution can therefore be implemented in situations where it is critical to minimize
the power consumption of sensors that rely on RF harvesting as their source of power.

Index Terms—Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting, RF wake-up, sensors, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

I. INTRODUCTION harvested energy in simultaneous energy and communication systems.

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting has been proposed as
an alternative to traditional energy sources for powering sensors.
Nevertheless, implementing RF energy harvesting systems remains
challenging due to the rapid attenuation and low power density of
RF signals. The widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
offers many advantages for RF energy harvesting [1]. In addition to
the mobility aspect, UAVs also enable transmit/receive distance control
and adaptation. Furthermore, a UAV can follow an optimized trajectory
to maximize energy transfer. Hence, UAVs enable the charging and
wake-up of sensors in a dynamic and efficient manner, especially in
remote and hard-to-reach areas such as agricultural fields [2].
Experimental testbeds of UAV-enabled systems have been realized
for different applications such as low-power communications [2],
[3] and RF wake-up [4]. In [3] and [5], the authors implement a
testbed of an ultralowpower UAV-enabled 2.4 GHz communication
system for smart agriculture, and provide an empirical study of the
communication channel. On the other hand, broadcast-based UAV-
enabled RF wake-up of ground sensors is studied in [4] achieving a
maximum wake-up distance of 8 m. In [6], an experimental testbed of
a solar-powered UAV is implemented demonstrating the capability of
28 h continuous flight. Experimental studies of RF energy harvesting
employing UAVs as transmitters are still limited. Analytical studies
exist [7]–[9] that focus on optimizing two-dimensional trajectory of the
UAV to achieve efficient energy transfer [7]. The authors in [9] develop
a propagation model of UAV-based harvesting systems in agricultural
environments and implemented a testbed to verify the received power
levels. Furthermore, the authors in [10] and [11] develop models for
Corresponding author: Joseph Costantine (e-mail: jcostantine@ieee.org).
Associate Editor: F. Costa.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LSENS.2020.2982803
Combining RF energy harvesting with a wake-up functionality offers
the advantage of increased energy savings. Nevertheless, it requires
the use of an active address detector to avoid false wake-up of the
sensor when a charging signal is received [12]. In [13], an address
detector with a power consumption of 39 μw and a sensitivity of
−28 dBm is developed for processing an ON-OFF-keying (OOK)-
modulated wake-up signal. The authors in [14] develop a wake-up
receiver based on 14-nm CMOS technology that is characterized by a
power consumption of 95 μW and a sensitivity of −72 dBm.
This letter presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a novel in-
band system that shares the same antenna and rectifier for UAV-enabled
RF energy harvesting and wake-up. The system employs a passive RF
energy harvester that boosts and stores energy from the low input power
signal of the UAV. In addition, an ultralowpower address detector
is used to detect a targeted wake-up signal received from the UAV.
The proposed harvesting system does not contain any active-biasing
sources, and the address detector requires minimal power to process
the received signal. Furthermore, experimental results are provided to
determine different parameters, including charging time, sensitivity,
wake-up selectivity, and operating range.
II. RF ENERGY HARVESTING AND WAKE-UP
COMBINED SYSTEM
A block diagram of the proposed RF energy harvesting and wake-up
combined system is shown in Fig. 1. The sensor relies on RF energy
harvesting to operate, and it is kept in a low power consumption
mode. A UAV equipped with a 2.4-GHz transmitter is positioned in the
proximity of the sensor to be charged or switched to active mode. An
antenna at the front-end of the receiver unit delivers the signal received
from the UAV to a rectifier which converts the input signal into dc

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1500304
Fig. 1. Block diagram of UAV-enabled RF harvesting and wake-up
system.
Fig. 2. Power management unit (PMU) circuit.
Fig. 3. Address detector circuit [15].
voltage. The output dc voltage of the rectifier is boosted by a power
management unit (PMU) and stored across a capacitor. The rectifier
circuit [16] employs a dual-tapered matching network to achieve a
high conversion efficiency across a frequency range of 2.4–2.5 GHz
with a maximum efficiency of 58% at an input power of 0 dBm. A
BQ770 PMU [17] shown in Fig. 2 is used to boost and regulate the dc
voltage. It contains a boost charger which requires an input dc voltage
of 600 mV to charge an empty storage capacitor (cold start operation).
The output of the PMU is regulated to 4.5 V by varying resistors R3
and R4. To wake-up a particular sensor, the UAV encodes an address
by OOK-modulation of the 2.4-GHz carrier, that is demodulated by
the rectifier, generating a pulsewidth modulation (PWM)-modulated
address at its output. The PWM-modulated address is processed by an
ultralowpower address detector [15] which generates a trigger when an
input with a specific pulse width is received. The address of the sensor
is encoded by varying the values of resistors R1 and R2 as shown in
Fig. 3. To minimize its power consumption, the address detector circuit
contains an auto power-OFF switch (U9) which disconnects the power
supply voltage at the common collector (VCC) from the active parts
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VOL. 4, NO. 5, MAY 2020
Fig. 4. (a) Fabricated rectifier [16]. (b) Fabricated PMU.
Fig. 5. Charging a capacitor at Pr = −12.6 dBm.
if no signal is received for 300 ms. The PMU and the address detector
appear as a high impedance load connected in parallel with the diode
of the rectifier. Therefore, their input voltage is equal to the rectifier’s
open-circuit voltage.
III. IMPLEMENTATION AND
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The fabricated harvesting and wake-up combined system are char-
acterized by a compact size and low power consumption, which make
it suitable for a variety of applications (see Fig. 4). The rectifier is
fabricated on a Rogers 3202 substrate with a height of 0.508 mm
and dimensions of 32.21 × 14.54 mm. The PMU is fabricated on
an FR4 epoxy substrate with dimensions of 23.8 × 25.80 mm. The
address detector circuit is fabricated on an FR4 epoxy substrate with
dimensions of 63 mm × 37 mm. The PMU has a quiescent current
consumption of 488 nA and it is powered by harvested energy. The
address detector is powered by a single LIR2032 battery and consumes
a current of 160 nA in idle mode and 3.16 μA in active mode.
Additionally, the threshold of the address detector is set to 24 mV
by tuning the values of resistors R7 and R8.
A. RF Energy Harvesting Results
To verify the operation of the harvesting system, a signal generator
transmitting a 2.4-GHz signal at 0 dBm is connected to the input of the
harvesting unit, and the voltage is measured at the input of the PMU
and output voltage across the storage capacitor on VBAT. Fig. 5(a)
exhibits charging an empty 220 μF capacitor from a cold start state
(V ST OR < Vth = 1.8V), where Vth is the threshold voltage required
to start the main boost charger. The voltage at VBAT continues to
increase until it stabilizes after a certain period at 4.5 V, as seen in
Fig. 5(b).
The relationship between the charging time and the UAV height is
found experimentally by generating a 2.4-GHz signal from the UAV’s
transmitter and collecting the received signal by the harvesting system.
The received power is found by measuring the output voltage of the
rectifier. The transmitter and the harvester are equipped with a 2 × 1
 VOL. 4, NO. 5, MAY 2020
Fig. 6. Capacitor charging time using (a) 12.6 dBi meandered array,
(b) 3 dBi dipole, and 6 dBi patch antenna.
meandered antenna array with a gain of 12.6 dBi [18]. The resulting
voltage curves presented in Fig. 6 show that the time required to charge
the capacitor is directly impacted by any change in height, which
impacts the transmit/receive distance. The minimum required received
power for charging an empty capacitor is found to be −18.2 dBm.
Additionally, the maximum achieved charging height is 0.5 m at a
transmit power of 10 dBm. The maximum height can be increased to
1.2 m by increasing the transmit power to 15.4 dBm. The operation
time of the UAV is determined by the capacity of the battery that
powers the transmitter and the weight of the payload. With a payload
composed of the transmitter that is powered by a single-cell (3.7 V)
LiPo battery with a capacity of 2000 mAh (450 g), the flight time of
the UAV is around 12 min at a velocity of 40 km/h.
To demonstrate the ability to perform harvesting without the need
for dedicated high-gain antennas, we experimented with commercially
available antennas for both UAV and sensor harvesting unit. The
transmitter power (transmitter 5015 from Valon Technology) was set
to 15 dBm. The UAV is equipped with a 3 dBi dipole antenna and the
sensor is equipped with a 6 dBi patch antenna. The UAV lands on top
of the ground unit to charge the capacitor as shown in Fig. 7(b). The
maximum height at which the capacitor can be charged to 4.5 V is found
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1500304
Fig. 7. Employing a UAV for RF charging and wake-up of sensors.
Fig. 8. Demodulation of received signal and selective wake-up of
sensors.
Fig. 9. Receiving a wake-up signal from a UAV.
to be 20 cm as seen in Fig. 6(b). The figure shows the voltage curves
obtained when the UAV lands with different distances between the
UAV’s dipole antenna and the harvester’s patch antenna. As the UAV
gets in close proximity to the harvester on the ground, it becomes more
prone to ground effects [19], which can be detrimental to its ability to
land precisely on the harvester. Fig. 6(b) shows the voltage curve when
the UAV lands with an offset (d) of 10 cm on the horizontal plane with
a height (h) of 10 cm. It can be seen that the charging time is a function
of the diagonal distance.
B. RF-Based Sensor Wake-Up Results
Two identical address detectors are fabricated and utilized to test
the concept of selective wake-up of sensors. Each address detector
is connected to the output of a separate antenna and rectifier. The
detectors are identical but they are configured with different resistors.
The values of R1 and R2 are set to 330 and 270 k for address detector
(A). As for address detector (B), they are set to 356 and 330 k.
Fig. 8 shows the output of the two detector circuits when a modulated
wake-up signal is received by both detectors at a received power of
−18.2 dBm. A wake-up signal is received between t1 and t2 . Only a
received signal with a width 3000 ms leads to triggering detector (A) at
t3 , whereas for detector (B), this value is 4000 ms. The auto power-OFF
circuit disconnects the power supply from the address detector at time
t4 to reduce its power consumption.
The wake-up event triggered by the UAV is captured in Fig. 9. The
UAV hovers at a height of 2 m over the ground unit as shown in
Fig. 7(a) and repeatedly transmits wake-up signals with a transmit
power of 10 dBm. Fig. 9 shows the output of address detector (A)
1500304
Table 1. Summary of Obtained Results.
Table 2. Comparison With Similar Works From the Literature.
1 RF harvesting
2 RF wake-up
when a modulated signal with an input power of −15.2 dBm is received
from the UAV. The address detector is characterized with false wake-up
probability of 6.23% in a noisy environment [15]. In order to find the
wake-up sensitivity, the distance between the transmitter and receiver
is increased in an outdoor environment and repeated wake-up signals
are transmitted. The wake-up sensitivity is found to be −40 dBm with a
wake-up range of 27.5 m at a transmit power of 15.4 dBm. The obtained
wake-up range shows good agreement with the calculated value of
30 m using a standard line of sight path loss model. A summary of
the obtained results for a transmit power of 15.4 dBm and an antenna
gain of 12.6 dBi is shown in Table 1. The distinctive feature of the
proposed system is combined passive RF harvesting/ultralowpower
wake-up with outstanding sensitivity. Moreover, the UAV can hover at
high altitudes to wake-up a specific sensor or decrease its altitude to
charge the sensor’s battery.
C. Comparison With Existing Works
Table 2 shows a comparison of this work with similar works from
the literature. In [3], the authors provide a testbed of a UAV-enabled
ultralowpower communication system which achieves a sensitivity of
−107 dBm, maximum range of 40 m, and a power consumption of
80 mW. In [14], a wake-up receiver is designed that achieves a power
consumption of 95 μW and a sensitivity of −72 dBm. On the other
hand, our proposed design is characterized with a power consumption
of 8.2 μW and a sensitivity of −40 dBm. In [20], an RF harvester is
designed achieving a higher sensitivity of −33 dBm, but it requires
an active biasing source to operate. Alternatively, the harvester in [21]
is completely passive with a sensitivity of −10 dB and maximum
range of 1.04 m. Meanwhile, our work is passive with a sensitivity of
−18.2 dBm and a maximum harvesting range of 1.2 m.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this letter, we present a UAV-enabled RF harvesting and wake-up
system. To the best of our knowledge, this work presents the first
testbed of this concept using a UAV. We evaluate different parameters
including sensitivity, charging time of a capacitor, and maximum
charging and wake-up distances. The proposed system performs wire-
less charging at short range and RF wake-up at long range, while taking
the advantage of enhanced mobility of the UAV to adapt the distance as
needed. The combined system can therefore benefit from this extended
mobility to prolong the lifetime of sensors that are scattered across a
large area.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the National Councils for Scientific Research in
Lebanon (Cnrs-L), in part by Italy (CNR), and in part by the American University of Beirut
(AUB).
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