Ethernet Energy Harvesting

Abstract: Improvements in embedded electronics which have effectively reduced power consumption requirements as well as advancements in IC technology allowing utilization of low power inputs have made Energy Harvesting a popular power solution for low power applications such as WSNs. In many implementation areas, we can see solar, thermal, and vibration energy harvesting techniques have taken the role of batteries as power source. Now that Energy Harvesting is a popular and considerably mature technology, with proper design and installation, any object exposing energy has the ability to be promoted as a power source. We are currently living in Internet age where we connect to the world through network packets. Ethernet, by far, is the most popular LAN technology which allows us to plug and play. Therefore, on an Ethernet link, billions of packets where our data are encapsulated in are traversing every hour. We assume each of these packets exposes some level of energy on an Ethernet link. The challenge here is harvesting the energy available from Ethernet packets and transforming it into useful energy so that it can be used to power devices such as WSNs. In this thesis work, we have revealed how much energy is available from Ethernet packets, and how much of it can be made usable. We have also designed a system where a WSN is generating all of its operating power solely from Ethernet packets and consuming this energy in communication with a base station.