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Project

Safe HousePower: Collaborative smart surfaces in home materials for safe wireless powering of IoT devices

Due to the emerging Internet of Things (IoT), the number of energy-demanding wireless devices in the home environment (such as smartphones, temperature sensors, smoke detectors, laptops, etc.) increases rapidly. As the number of sockets in a residence is limited and the frequent need for recharging or battery replacement is time-consuming, we propose in this project to power IoT devices wirelessly through the house infrastructure. Therefore, smart surfaces will be conceived for walls, ceilings, floors, and even furniture. It will be researched how the surfaces can be implemented unobtrusively and cost-efficiently, by making use of typical home and furniture materials (e.g., wood, textile). Each surface consists of a mesh of cells that collaborate as to achieve directive wireless powering of devices that are not nearby. In addition, the surfaces implemented in furniture enable also inductive powering of nearby devices. On top of this, the various surfaces embedded in a room collaborate in a distributed way, optimizing the high-frequency power beams to the IoT devices. A specific added value of the project is the combination with radar sensing techniques in order to avoid beam steering towards locations with human presence, thereby enabling Safe HousePower.

Date:1 Jan 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Active antenna systems, Intelligent surfaces, Internet of Things, Wireless Power Transfer
Disciplines:Antennas and propagation, Wireless communication and positioning systems, Microwave and millimetre wave technology