Receiver for wireless power and broadband data

A method of receiving wireless power and broadband data from a transmitter, the method comprising:

• receiving a radio-frequency signal (an RF signal) on a first antenna;
• forwarding a first portion of the RF signal to a harvester to harvest the wireless power from power-carrying subcarriers included in the RF signal;
• forwarding a second portion of the RF signal, associated with the first antenna, to a first RF frontend;
• in the first RF frontend, converting the second portion of the RF signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) that is aligned in frequency and phase with a transmitter IF to obtain a first down-converted signal;
• in a first second-level demodulator, performing a quadrature demodulation on the first down-converted signal to obtain a first complex baseband signal;
• in a subcarriers demodulator, converting a frame including the first complex baseband signal from a time domain to a frequency domain to obtain subcarriers specifications;
• from the subcarriers specifications, selecting specifications of broadband data carrying subcarriers;
• in a first-level demodulator, demodulating selected specifications of broadband data carrying subcarriers to obtain data bits;
• and
• in a demapper, extracting at least one of broadband data, metadata, or power information from the data bits.

A method of directing an angle of reception in a receiver that can simultaneously receive broadband data and wireless power, the method comprising:

• in a power management circuit, determining if the receiver should start demodulating broadband data and/or harvesting wireless power;
• in response to determining that the receiver should start demodulating data and/or harvesting wireless power, activating at least a part of the receiver and using a first stored configuration setting to configure a beamforming circuit to receive at least one of broadband data or wireless power from a first direction;
• receiving the at least one of broadband data or wireless power from the first direction;
• analyzing a received radio frequency (RF) signal including the at least one of broadband data or wireless power to determine a direction of a best reception, wherein the direction of best reception is one of a direction that has a maximum signal strength and a direction that has a lowest bit error rate (BER);
• storing information including the direction of best reception in a second stored configuration setting;
• configuring the beamforming circuit to receive from the direction of best reception;
• in the power management circuit, detecting if the receiver should stop demodulating the broadband data and/or the harvesting wireless power;
• and
• in response to detecting that the receiver should stop demodulating the broadband data and/or harvesting the wireless power, performing one of powering down the receiver and placing the receiver in a sleep mode.