Autonomous vehicle support using hybrid-powered embedded sensors
AssigneeWashington University
InventorsShantanu Chakrabartty, Kenji Aono, Sri Harsha Kondapalli, Owen Pochettino
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Abstract
A hybrid-powered sensing device is disclosed that includes a power source coupled to a sensing module via an RF-triggered load switching module.
Claims20
A hybrid-powered RFID sensor device comprising a sensing module operatively coupled to a power source via an RF-triggered load switching module, the RF-triggered load switching module comprising an RF-DC converter coupled to a low-leakage load switch, wherein the RF-triggered load switching module operatively couples the power source to the sensing module via the low-leakage load switch using energy rectified from an RF signal received by RF-DC converter.
A method of transmitting data from a hybrid-powered RFID sensor device to a moving vehicle, the hybrid-powered RFID sensor device comprising a sensing module operatively coupled to a power source via an RF-triggered load switching module, the method comprising:
- a. producing an RF signal at the vehicle;
- b. receiving the RF signal at an energy-harvesting antenna of the RF-triggered load switching module and rectifying;
- c. rectifying the received RF signal into energy at the energy-harvesting antenna to produce a switch activation signal;
- d. activating a low-leakage load switch in response to the switch activation signal to operatively couple the power source to the sensor module;
- and
- e. collecting sensor data from at least one sensor of the sensing module and transmitting sensor data and static data to the vehicle via the transmitting antenna of the sensing module.
An Infrastructure-to-Vehicular (I2V) communication system, the system comprising:
- a. a vehicle-mounted interrogation module comprising at least one RF interrogation antenna operatively coupled to a wireless microcontroller (MCU), the at least one RF interrogation antenna configured to produce an RF trigger signal and to receive RF static and sensor data;
- and
- b. an embedded hybrid-powered RFID sensor device comprising a sensing module operatively coupled to a power source via an RF-triggered load switching module, wherein:
- i. the RF-triggered load switching module comprises an RF-DC converter coupled to a low-leakage load switch, wherein the RF-triggered load switching module operatively couples the power source to the sensing module via the low-leakage load switch using energy rectified from the RF signal received by RF-DC converter;
- and
- ii. the sensing module comprises an RF microcontroller (MCU) operatively connected to at least one sensor and a transmitting antenna, the RF microcontroller (MCU) configured to combine static data stored at the RF microcontroller (MCU) and sensor data collected from the at least one sensor to form the RF static and sensor data transmitted to the vehicle-mounted interrogation module via the transmitting antenna.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.