Low-Power Ultrasonic Front End for Cargo Container Monitoring

Algueta-Miguel, José M.; Garcia-Oya, Jose Ramon; López-Martín, Antonio J.; Blas, Carlos A. De La Cruz; Chavero, Fernando Muñoz; Fort, Eduardo Hidalgo

doi:10.1109/tim.2019.2939704

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 32 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…However, conventional wireless communication is inapplicable in many scenarios due to electromagnetic shielding. Applications include structural health monitoring, where sensor nodes are embedded within a structure [4][5][6], underwater communication [7,8], fallback systems in nuclear power plants [9], and generally sensors within enclosed metal containers, e.g., pipelines, ship hulls, or cargo containers [10]. In contrast to electromagnetic waves, acoustic waves experience little attenuation in these scenarios and allow efficient transmission over longer distances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Backscatter Communication and Power Transfer for Batteryless Wireless Sensors

Oppermann

Renner

2023

Sensors

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Sensors for industrial and structural health monitoring are often in shielded and hard-to-reach places. Acoustic wireless power transfer (WPT) and piezoelectric backscatter enable batteryless sensors in such scenarios. Although the low efficiency of WPT demands power-conserving sensor nodes, backscatter communication, which consumes near-zero power, has not yet been combined with WPT. This study reviews the available approaches to acoustic WPT and active and passive acoustic through-metal communication. We design a batteryless and backscattering tag prototype from commercially available components. Analysis of the prototypes reveals that low-power hardware poses additional challenges for communication, i.e., unstable and inaccurate oscillators. Therefore, we implement a software-defined receiver using digital phase-locked loops (DPLLs) to mitigate the effects of oscillator instability. We show that DPLLs enable reliable backscatter communication with inaccurate clocks using simulation and real-world measurements. Our prototype achieves communication at 2 kBs−1 over a distance of 3 m. Furthermore, during transmission, the prototype consumes less than 300 μW power. At the same time, over 4 mW of power is received through wireless transmission over a distance of 3 m with an efficiency of 2.8%.

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