Active Safety System with RF Energy Harvesting Capabilities for Industrial Applications using Interchangeable Implements

In this paper a system for the remote powering of low power electronic devices is presented. The system has been applied to a real industrial application allowing to enhance active safety in industrial vehicles. It is comprised of two main devices: i) the End Device (ED) with an embedded Radio Frequency (RF) energy harvester; ii) the Illuminator-Gateway Device (IGD) with an embedded RF power transmitter. Thanks to the optimization of the customized dual band Planar Inverted Folded Antenna (PIFA) used, the ULP architecture of the ED, the hardware-software co-design approach used and the optimization of the ED firmware, the proposed system is able to provide up to the 63% of the power required by the ED when it is on duty.