Energy harvesting from ambient WiFi energy : A method of harvesting and measuring ambient WiFi energy

Abstract: The aim of this thesis was to investigate the question of how to harvest RF energy and if we can harvest enough RF energy for it to be useful in an application. It is aimed towards sensor node applications, commonly used in a typical office environment. The WiFi band was chosen since it is omnipresent in the same environment. With the current development within wireless technology and the IoT domain the demand for low power electronic applications has increased and one of the challenges is to find efficient and sustainable ways of powering these types of devices.The best possible theoretical power content was initially calculated followed by measurements in an office. A circuit was designed containing an impedance matching network and rectifier. A measurement application was constructed using a microcontroller. Measurements were made in an office environment and the maximum harvested energy over 24 hours was 350 mJ. The energy was stored in a supercapacitor and is estimated to be enough to power a low energy sensor for about 30 seconds. A large part of the thesis is devoted to impedance matching involving calculating, simulating and experimenting to get a good result.