This thesis introduces the circuit and system design of interactive Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. IoT has the vision of connectivity for anything, at anytime and anywhere. One of the most important characteristics of IoT is the automatic and massive interaction of real physical world (things and human) with the virtual Internet world.RFID tags integrated with sensors have been considered as one suitable technology for realizing the interaction. However, while it is important to have RFID tags with sensors as the input interaction, it is also important to have RFID tags with displays as the output interaction.Display interfaces vary based on the information and application scenarios. On one side, remote and centralized display interface is more suitable for scenarios such as monitoring and localization. On the other side, tag level display interface is more suitable for scenarios such as object identification and online to offline propagation. For tag level display, though a substantial number of researches have focused on introducing sensing functionalities to low power Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) RFID tags, few works address UHF RFID tags with display interfaces. Power consumption and integration with display of rigid substrate are two main challenges.With the recent emerging of Electronic Paper Display (EPD) technologies, it becomes possible to overcome the two challenges. EPD resembles ordinary ink on paper by characteristics of substrate flexibility, pattern printability and material bi-stability. Average power consumption of display is significantly reduced due to bi-stability, the ability to hold color for certain periods without power supplies. Among different EPD types, Electrochromic (EC) display shows advantage of low driving voltage compatible to chip supply voltage.Therefore this thesis designs a low power UHF RFID tag integrated in 180 nm CMOS process with inkjet-printed EC polyimide display. For applications where refresh rate is ultra-low (such as electronic label in retailing and warehouse), the wireless display tag is passive and supplied by the energy harvested from UHF RF wave. For applications where refresh rate is not ultra-low (such as object identification label in mass customized manufacturing), the wireless display tag is semi-passive and supplied by soft battery. It works at low average power consumption and with out-of-battery alert. For remote and centralized display, the limitations of uplink (from tags to reader) capacity and massive-tag information feedback in IoT scenarios is the main challenge. Compared to conventional UHF RFID backscattering whose data rate is limited within hundreds of kb/s, Ultra-wideband (UWB) transmission have been verified with the performance of Mb/s data rate with several tens of pJ/pulse energy consumption.Therefore, a circuit prototype of UHF/UWB RFID tag replacing UHF backscattering with UWB transmitter is implemented. It also consists of Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes for healthcare applications of real-time remote monitoring of multiple patients ECG signals. The ECG electrodes are fabricated on paper substrate by inkjet printing to improve patient comfort. Key contribution of the thesis includes: 1) the power management scheme and circuit design of passive UHF/UWB RFID display tag. The tag sensitivity (the input RF power) is -10.5 dBm for EC display driving, comparable to the performance of conventional passive UHF RFID tags without display functions, and -18.5 dBm for UWB transmission, comparable to the state-of-the-art performance of passive UHF RFID tag. 2) communication flow and circuit design of UHF/UWB RFID tag with ECG sensing. The optimum system throughout is 400 tags/second with 1.5 KHz ECG sampling rate and 10 Mb/s UWB pulse rate. / <p>QC 20151012</p>

This report deals with the development of a wireless sensor system that measures the environmental energy and predicts if energy harvesting could be possible in different areas. It provides an overview over the hardware used to build this system and gives a detailed description of the software implementation of the system. The hardware part presents the microcontroller and platform that is used, as well as the sensors integrated in the system. The software part explains how the used hardware was put together in a program that controls the different components. It explains the possibility to save captured sensor values on an SD card or send them to a remote receiver with an XBee radio module in real time. Also the inclusion of the mbed software library, which provides a lot of useful applications and functions for the project, is an important part. The final part of the report presents the results, showing how the system works.

The goal of this dissertation consists of improving the efficiency of energy harvesting using pyroelectric and piezoelectric materials in a system by the proper characterization of electrical parameters, widening frequency, and coupling of both effects with the appropriate parameters. A new simple stand-alone method of characterizing the impedance of a pyroelectric cell has been demonstrated. This method utilizes a Pyroelectric single pole low pass filter technique, PSLPF. Utilizing the properties of a PSLPF, where a known input voltage is applied and capacitance Cp and resistance Rp can be calculated at a frequency of 1 mHz to 1 Hz. This method demonstrates that for pyroelectric materials the impedance depends on two major factors: average working temperature, and the heating rate. Design and implementation of a hybrid approach using multiple piezoelectric cantilevers is presented. This is done to achieve mechanical and electrical tuning, along with bandwidth widening. In addition, a hybrid tuning technique with an improved adjusting capacitor method was applied. An toroid inductor of 700 mH is shunted in to the load resistance and shunt capacitance. Results show an extended frequency range up to 12 resonance frequencies (300% improvement) with improved power up to 197%. Finally, a hybrid piezoelectric and pyroelectric system is designed and tested. Using a voltage doubler, circuit for rectifying and collecting pyroelectric and piezoelectric voltages individually is proposed. The investigation showed that the hybrid energy is possible using the voltage doubler circuit from two independent sources for pyroelectrictity and piezoelectricity due to marked differences of optimal performance.

Une solution pertinente afin d'alimenter des capteurs isolés consiste à récupérer l'énergie disponible dans leur environnement immédiat. Parmi les sources d'énergie envisageables, notre choix s'est porté sur les vibrations mécaniques ambiantes. Notre contribution porte sur l'étude et la réalisation, par un procédé de fabrication collective, d'un transducteur électrostatique sans électrets en technologie MEMS Silicium. Nous proposons une étude analytique permettant d'optimiser l'efficacité du générateur électrostatique, tout en considérant une limite sur la tension maximale aux bornes du transducteur afin de ne pas endommager le circuit de conditionnement. Le design proposé prend également en compte d'éventuelles variations de l'amplitude des vibrations externes. Le dispositif a été fabriqué au sein de ESIEE Paris et présente un volume total de moins de 100 mm3.Les tests expérimentaux ont montré un comportement fortement non-linéaire de la structure. Nous avons obtenu une conversion d'énergie mécanique en énergie électrique correspondant à une puissance maximale de 2.3 μW à 260 Hz, pour une accélération de 1 g et à une pression de 0.15 Torr, lorsque le système est pré-chargé avec une tension de 10 V. Une fois implémenté dans un circuit de pompe de charge et pour les mêmes conditions d'accélération et de pression, le système peut fonctionner en complète autonomie pendant plus de 500 secondes pendant lesquelles la puissance délivrée varie de 1.4 μW à 940 nW avec une tension de pré-charge de 10.6 V / A relevant solution to power isolated sensors is to harvest the energy available in their immediate environment. Among the possible sources of energy, our choice was made on ambient mechanical vibrations. We have designed and fabricated a silicon-based and batch-processed MEMS electrostatic transducer which does not use an electret. We present an analytical method to optimize the efficiency of the electrostatic generator, while a voltage limitation on the transducer's terminal is set to prevent any damage in the conditioning electronics. The proposed design also takes into account some possible variations in the amplitude of external vibration. The device was fabricated in ESIEE Paris and its volume is less than 100 mm3. The device was tested experimentally and exhibits a strong non-linear behavior. We obtained a conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy corresponding to a power of 2.3 μW at 260 Hz, with an acceleration of 1 g and a pressure of 0.15 Torr, when the system is pre-charged with a voltage of10 V. When the device is implemented in a charge pump circuit and under the same parameters of acceleration and pressure, the system can operate in autonomous mode for more than 500 seconds during which the output power varies from 1.4 μW to 940 nW when the pre-charge voltage is 10.6 V

Les étiquettes d'identification radiofréquence passifs (RFID) sont des systèmes télé-communiquant dont l'approvisionnement en énergie se fait via les ondes électromagnétiques. De plus en plus présents dans notre environnement (passeport, badge d'accès, gestion de stock), ils ont l'avantage d'avoir une durée de vie presque infinie, et ne consomment de l'énergie que lorsqu'ils sont sollicités. Par ailleurs, leur moyen de communiquer, sans fil, permet de les utiliser dans des endroits difficiles d'accès pour des lecteurs optiques type code à barre. Toutefois, la portée de tels systèmes est limitée par l'efficacité de la récupération de l'énergie provenant des ondes. Dans ce cadre, l'augmentation de la portée des étiquettes RFID, notamment pour les applications de logistique est un élément primordial.Sont présentés dans cette thèse différents moyens d'augmenter cette portée notamment grâce à l'amélioration des blocs de récupération d'énergie ou l'adaptation d'impédance, tout en respectant des contraintes liées au coût du système. La première partie se focalise sur la réduction des pertes du bloc de récupération d'énergie par l'optimisation du layout. Une architecture à haut rendement à transistor polarisé est ensuite proposée. Pour finir, l'impact de la rétro-modulation et de l'adaptation d'impédance en fréquence sur la récupération d'énergie sont étudiés et améliorés. / The passive radio frequency identification tags (RFID) systems communicate with a remote power supply thanks to electromagnetic waves. Increasingly present in our environment (biometric passport, inventory management), they present the advantage to have an almost infinite lifetime, and consume energy only when they are solicited. Moreover, because it is a wireless way to communicate, it is possible to use these systems places inaccessible to optical drives type bar code. However, the range of such systems is limited by the efficiency of the recovery of energy from waves. In this context, increasing the range of RFID tags, especially for logistics applications is essential.In this these, different ways to increase the range are studied. The first part focuses on the reduction of losses on the rectifying circuitry thanks to layout optimization. An high performances architecture with transistor biased is then proposed. Finally, the impact of backscattering and impedance matching on the energy recovery are studied and improved.

<p>The computational modeling of ocean waves and ocean-faring devices poses numerous challenges. Among these are the need to stably and accurately represent both the fluid-fluid interface between water and air as well as the fluid-structure interfaces arising between solid devices and one or more fluids. As techniques are developed to stably and accurately balance the interactions between fluid and structural solvers at these boundaries, a similarly pressing challenge is the development of algorithms that are massively scalable and capable of performing large-scale three-dimensional simulations on reasonable time scales. This dissertation introduces two separate methods for approaching this problem, with the first focusing on the development of sophisticated fluid-fluid interface representations and the second focusing primarily on scalability and extensibility to higher-order methods.</p><p>We begin by introducing the narrow-band gradient-augmented level set method (GALSM) for incompressible multiphase Navier-Stokes flow. This is the first use of the high-order GALSM for a fluid flow application, and its reliability and accuracy in modeling ocean environments is tested extensively. The method demonstrates numerous advantages over the traditional level set method, among these a heightened conservation of fluid volume and the representation of subgrid structures.</p><p> </p><p>Next, we present a finite-volume algorithm for solving the incompressible Euler equations in two and three dimensions in the presence of a flow-driven free surface and a dynamic rigid body. In this development, the chief concerns are efficiency, scalability, and extensibility (to higher-order and truly conservative methods). These priorities informed a number of important choices: The air phase is substituted by a pressure boundary condition in order to greatly reduce the size of the computational domain, a cut-cell finite-volume approach is chosen in order to minimize fluid volume loss and open the door to higher-order methods, and adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is employed to focus computational effort and make large-scale 3D simulations possible. This algorithm is shown to produce robust and accurate results that are well-suited for the study of ocean waves and the development of wave energy conversion (WEC) devices.</p> / Dissertation

L’Internet-of-Things désigne un développement en plein essor d’objets interconnectés et qui sont susceptibles de modifier nombre de services au sein de l’industrie comme pour la personne. Les développements actuels buttent sur plusieurs verrous dont celui de l’autonomie énergétique des objets ou encore des procédés de fabrication économiquement acceptables et respectueux de la planète. Dans ce contexte, la récupération d'énergie est une thématique largement répandue faisant appel à des sources très variées (mécanique, thermique, électromagnétique...). Cette thèse est notamment orientée vers la récupération d'énergie électromagnétique ambiante. Le second point caractéristique de cette thèse est de s'intéresser à des substrats souples et si possible recyclables. Le défi consiste à récupérer l’énergie provenant d’un champ électromagnétique ambiant extrêmement faible : ceci concerne l’antenne, qui doit par ailleurs répondre à une exigence de flexibilité pour son intégration future à un objet souple et déformable, et l’électronique de traitement de l’énergie.Le travail de thèse est articulé autour de trois phases principales :Dans la première phase, il s’agissait de l’étude des structures d’antennes compatibles en fréquence et en puissance reçue avec l’application de récupération d’énergie et une réalisation physique sur base souple (papier, tissu...). Cette phase a permis de présenter les différentes approches pour combiner les sources RF.Dans la deuxième phase, il s’agit de l’étude sur le rôle de circuits redresseurs dans le système de récupérer d’énergie. Les méthodes d'extraction des paramètres sont discutées en dissociant chaque élément et leurs rôles. De nombreuses mesures ont été réalisées afin de comparer différents modèles de la diode utilisée pour le redressement, en tenant compte également de l'impact réel du processus de fabrication et du processus de mesure.Une troisième phase permet l’optimisation de l’ensemble antenne et électronique (rectenna) pour divers scenarii et le suivi de la variabilité pour maintenir les pertes du système a minima. La réalisation de démonstrateurs pertinents, testés et caractérisés est présentée. / Internet-of-Things means a growing development of interconnected objects that are likely to change many services within the industry as well as for the individual. Several barriers, including the energy autonomy of objects or production processes that are economically acceptable and respectful of the planet, hamper current developments. In this context, energy recovery is a widespread theme using a wide range of sources (mechanical, thermal, electromagnetic, etc.). This thesis is oriented towards the recovery of ambient electromagnetic energy. The second characteristic point of this thesis is to focus on flexible and, if possible, recyclable substrates. The challenge is to recover energy from an extremely low ambient electromagnetic field: this concerns the antenna, which must also meet a requirement for flexibility for its future integration with a flexible and deformable object, and the electronics of energy processing.The work of this thesis conducted in three phases.In the first phase, it was the study of the antenna structures compatible with frequency and power received with the energy harvesting application and a physical realization on flexible base (paper, textile, etc.). This phase allowed presenting the different approaches to combining the RF sources.In the second phase, the study on the role of rectifying circuit in the system of recovering wireless energy was presented. Methods for extracting parameters were discussed by separating each element and its roles. Numerous measurements have been conducted to compare different models of the diode, taking into account also the actual impact of the manufacturing process and the measurement process.A third phase allows the optimization of the antenna and electronic assembly (rectenna) for various scenarios and the monitoring of variability to keep the losses of the system at minima. The production of relevant demonstrators, test and characterization were presented.

Dans le contexte de développement de produits sans-contact communiquant à très haut débit, dît systèmes VHBR (Very High Bit Rate), il s’avère que les cartes ou passeports VHBR, télé-alimentés à partir du lecteur qui communique avec eux, sont contraints de fonctionner avec une alimentation bien plus faible que les produits communiquant à des débits standards. Pour répondre à cette problématique de manque de puissance d’alimentation, il a été nécessaire de commencer par reprendre la théorie des lignes en l'orientant de manière à ce qu'elle permette de quantifier les transferts de puissance entre une source et une charge séparées par un média quelconque. Ensuite, ce nouveau moyen de quantification des transferts de puissance a été utilisé pour faire de l'aide à la conception des lecteurs VHBR. Ensuite, ce travail de recherche se concentre sur les cartes ou passeports VHBR. En effet, pour permettre à un tel système sans contact de fonctionner de manière télé-alimentée dans un environnement où la puissance disponible est réduite, il faut optimiser sa conception. Les solutions proposées ici consistent à déterminer la géométrie des antennes inductives qui optimisent la récupération d'énergie et le transfert de puissance vers la puce d'une carte VHBR. Ainsi, les travaux présentés dans ce manuscrit apportent des solutions globales à cette problématique de récupération d'énergie dans les objets connectés que sont les systèmes sans contact, en décrivant des méthodes de conception qui permettent d'une part de limiter les pertes de puissance au sein des lecteurs VHBR, et d'autre part d'optimiser la récupération d'énergie au sein des cartes VHBR. / The research work presented in this thesis provides solutions to help industrials to better design RFID readers and RFID tags that implement VHBR (Very High Bit Rate) protocols. Indeed, VHBR technology has a large drawback on the functionning of RFID tags as it lowers the energy available to supply the tag. First, this research work focuses on RFID reader design, and especially matching networks design. After describing a new way of assessing power transfer in Radio Frequency systems, it is shown that T matching networks as thoses proposed in ISO/IEC 10373-6 give the best results in terms of power transfer and signal integrity. Thus, a design method is proposed to correctly choose the three T matching network components that will optimize the power transfer and still meet the signal integrity requirements.Second, this thesis will focus on the design of RFID tags, by describing a new tag's antenna design method that optimize the energy harvested by the antenna and meanwhile reduce the power reflections between the antenna and the tag's chip. This design method is based on new explicit formula that compute a rectangular planar antenna inductance as a function of its geometric characteristics. This method showed very accurate results, and can become an interesting tool for industrials to speed up and optimize their antenna design procedure.Finally, a platform that measures RFID chip's impedance in every state of the chip has been designed, even during load modulation communication. The accuracy of this tool and its importance in order to achieve a good antenna design confer it a great usefulness.

A conversão de energia vibracional do ambiente em energia elétrica através de dispositivos piezelétricos tem recebido crescente atenção na última década. Com intuito de melhorar o desempenho destes tipos de dispositivo, são discutidos os benefícios da introdução de não linearidades nestes sistemas. O dispositivo utilizado é uma viga cantilever tipo bimorph, parcialmente recoberta por material piezelétrico, com massas magnéticas concentradas na extremidade livre da viga que geram forças magnéticas não lineares. Nesse dispositivo, além da não linearidade proveniente dos magnetos, considera-se também a não linearidade inerente ao material piezelétrico. A solução das equações eletromecânicas acopladas, que descreve o movimento do conversor piezelétrico de energia, é encontrada numericamente resolvendo-se um conjunto de equações diferenciais ordinárias com condições iniciais dadas. A resposta em frequência do sistema é aproximada pelo método perturbativo das múltiplas escalas. A potência elétrica gerada é analisada variando-se alguns parâmetros, como intensidade da força de excitação, distância entre os magnetos da extremidade livre da viga e resistor de carga. A estabilidade do sistema também é investigada através de uma análise dinâmica, de onde se conclui a influência da distância entre os magnetos juntamente com a intensidade da força de excitação nesta estabilidade. Estes parâmetros também influenciam na faixa de frequência de operação do dispositivo. É observado que os efeitos não lineares presentes no dispositivo fazem com que este opere em uma ampla faixa de frequência. É realizado o estudo de incertezas em alguns parâmetros do conversor de energia piezelétrico, através de simulações de Monte Carlo, concluindo a influência destes na frequência natural e na potência elétrica gerada pelo dispositivo. Através de ensaios experimentais confirmam-se os benefícios da introdução de não linearidades nos geradores de energia piezelétricos. / Piezoelectric energy harvesting has received great attention over the last years. The main goal of this work is to discuss the potential advantages of introducing nonlinearities in the dynamics of a beam type piezoelectric vibration energy harvester. The device is essentially a cantilever beam partially covered by piezoelectric material with a magnet tip mass. Also, we consider the nonlinear constitutive piezoelectric equations. The electromechanically coupled equations are solved numerically, through the initial value problems for ordinary differential equations. The frequency response of the system is approximated using the method of multiple scales. The electrical power output is calculated by varying the amplitude of the base acceleration, the distance between the magnets and the load resistor. The stability of the system is also investigated. Stochastic variations are introduced in some key parameters and the propagation of these uncertainties is investigated through Monte Carlos simulations. From the numerical results it is found that the influence of the parameters investigated in the frequency range of operation of the device and the nonlinear effects present on the device energy harvester extend the useful frequency range of these. Moreover uncertainty parameters affect the natural frequency and the power output harvester. Through experimental tests it has been confirmed the benefits of introducing nonlinearities in piezoelectric energy harvesters.

A exploração de fenômenos aeroelásticos dinâmicos visando à conversão de energia do escoamento em eletricidade tem recebido crescente atenção nos últimos anos. As aplicações se estendem desde estruturas aeroespaciais até a alimentação de sistemas eletrônicos sem fio e diferentes mecanismos de transdução têm sido utilizados. O uso de um aerofólio é uma abordagem conveniente e escalável para criar instabilidades e oscilações persistentes para coleta aeroelástica de energia. Este trabalho tem por objetivo avaliar configurações alternativas de aerofólio para a coleta de energia do escoamento. As análises abrangem as versões lineares e não lineares de geradores aeroelásticos de energia baseados em aerofólio com dois (2GDL) e com três graus de liberdade (3GDL) que utilizam transdução piezelétrica e eletromagnética separadamente e também simultaneamente. Em todos os casos o acoplamento eletroaeroelástico é adicionado ao grau de liberdade de flexão do aerofólio e um circuito elétrico externo utilizado para cada tipo de mecanismo de transdução. As equações adimensionais que governam o sistema eletroaeroelástico são apresentadas para cada caso e uma carga resistiva é considerada no domínio elétrico para a previsão da potência gerada. Inicialmente, as previsões do modelo piezoaeroelástico linear com 2GDL são verificadas a partir de resultados experimentais obtidos em ensaios em túnel de vento na condição de flutter. Posteriormente, no primeiro estudo de caso, o comportamento eletroaeroelástico da seção típica com 2GDL é investigado, na velocidade de flutter, variando-se parâmetros aeroelásticos e eletromecânicos. No segundo estudo de caso, uma não linearidade do tipo freeplay é adicionada ao grau de liberdade de rotação da seção típica de 2GDL. Neste caso, a seção típica é estudada na velocidade mais baixa na qual o sistema apresenta oscilações em ciclo limite para diversas configurações de parâmetros aeroelásticos e eletromecânicos. As oscilações não lineares em ciclo limite podem ser obtidas abaixo da velocidade linear de flutter. Finalmente, o comportamento eletroaeroelástico de uma seção típica linear com 3GDL é estudado segundo a variação de diferentes parâmetros. Em todos os estudos de caso, a potência gerada e a amplitude dos GDLs mecânicos são investigadas. Com o estudo, é possível localizar regiões ótimas de parâmetros adimensionais as quais propiciam um aumento da potência elétrica de saída com velocidades de escoamento aceitáveis. Uma vez escalável, é possível redimensionalizar o modelo e manufaturá-lo. / The exploration of dynamic aeroelastic phenomena for converting wind energy into low-power electricity has received growing attention in the last years. Applications extend from aerospace structures to wireless electronic systems. The use of an airfoil is a convenient approach to create instabilities and persistent oscillations for flow energy harvesting. In this work, the goal is to establish alternative configurations of the airfoil for flow energy harvesting. The analysis presented here covers linear and nonlinear versions of aeroelastic energy generators based on an airfoil with two degrees of freedom and three degrees of freedom using piezoelectric and electromagnetic transduction separately and simultaneously. Both forms of coupling are added to the plunge degree of freedom in the presence of a separate electrical load for each type of transduction. The governing coupled dimensionless electroaeroelastic equations are given with a resistive load in each electrical domain to predict system behavior. First, the model predictions are compared with experimental data obtained in wind tunnel tests under flutter condition validating the model for the case of two degrees of freedom and piezoelectric coupling. After, in the first case study the typical section with two and three degrees of freedom is studied at the linear flutter speed for several aeroelastic and electromechanical parameters configurations. In the second case of study a freeplay non-linearity is added to the rotational degree of freedom of the two degree of freedom typical section. In this case, the typical section is studied at the lowest flow speed at which the system presents limit cycle oscillations for different aeroelastic and electromechanical system parameters. The non-linear limit cycle oscillations may be obtained below the linear flutter speed. In both cases, the power generation is analyzed as well as the maximum displacements of the mechanical degrees of freedom. With this study, it is possible to locate the favorable dimensionless parameter regions that give maximum electrical power output as well as reasonable airflow speeds. In this scalable problem, the results can be used for design and fabrication of optimal airfoil-based flow energy harvesters.