Energy Harvesting Autonomous Sensor Systems

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Electrical Power Transfer with “No Wires”

In this chapter, the concept of electrical power transfer with “no wires” is introduced with a similar objective as energy harvesting, that is, to enable remote charging of low-power electronic devices. Wireless power transfer (WPT) is the process by which a system delivers electrical energy from a power source to the load without any connecting wires. Almost 100 years ago, before the advent of the electric grid, the genius inventor Nikola Tesla envisioned a future when huge towers would radiate energy directly into our homes for consumption [147]. But only over the past 5 years has there been a remarkable interest in researching commercially viable and safe methods of WPT, mainly due to the surge ...