This paper presents a novel sensitive triple-band power rectifier for RF energy harvesting systems. The proposed rectifier can simultaneously harvest RF energy from GSM-900, GSM-1800, and Wi-Fi-2450 bands at relatively low and medium ambient power densities. Previously, a few multi-band rectennas have been reached a stable conversion efficiency overall frequency bands of interest because of the nonlinearity and the distinct input impedance of the rectifying circuit at these frequencies. The originality of this paper is on the improved impedance matching technique that enhances the efficiency and performance of the rectifier. The proposed high-efficiency triple-band rectifier consists of three parallel branches. Each branch comprises an input matching circuit designed to provide maximum RF power transferred to rectifying diodes, a single voltage doubler using Schottky diode HSMS-2852, and a DC-pass filter to smooth the DC output voltage. A prototype of the proposed rectifier circuit is fabricated and tested to verify its performance against the simulation results. With an optimum load resistance of 3.8 kΩ at -10 dBm input power level, the measured RF to DC conversion efficiency achieves 33.7%, 21.8%, and 20% at 0.9, 1.8 and 2.45 GHz respectively. The efficiency is above 46.5 % overall bands of interest under 0 dBm input power.

Food companies worldwide must constantly engage in product development to stay competitive, cover existing markets, explore new markets, and meet key consumer requirements. This ongoing development places high demands on achieving quality at all levels, particularly in terms of food safety, integrity, quality, nutrition, and other health effects. Food product research is required to convert the initial product idea into a formulation for upscaling production with ensured significant results. Sensory evaluation is an effective component of the whole process. It is especially important in the last step in the development of new products to ensure product acceptance. In that stage, measurements of product aroma play an important role in ensuring that consumer expectations are satisfied. To this end, the electronic nose (e-nose) can be a useful tool to achieve this purpose. The e-nose is a combination of various sensors used to detect gases by generating signals for an analysis system. Our research group has investigated the scent factor in some foodstuff and attempted to develop e-noses based on low-cost technology and compact size. In this paper, we present a summary of our research to date on applications of the e-nose in the food industry.

In this paper, we focus on ambient radio frequency energy available from commercial broadcasting stations in order to provide a system based on RF energy harvesting using a new design of receiving antenna. Several antenna designs have been proposed for use in RF energy harvesting systems, as a pertinent receiving antenna design is highly required since the antenna features can affect the amount of energy harvested. The proposed antenna is aimed at greatly increasing the energy harvesting efficiency over Wi-Fi bands: 2.45 GHz and 5 GHz. This provides a promising alternative energy source in order to power sensors located in harsh environments or remote places, where other energy sources are impracticable. The dual-band antenna can be easily integrated with RF energy harvesting system on the same circuit board. Simulations and measurements were carried out to evaluate the antenna performances and investigate the effects of different design parameters on the antenna performance. The receiving antenna meets the required bandwidth specification and provides peak gain of more than 4 dBi across the operating band.

This paper reports on the fabrication of a capacitive-type relative humidity (RH) sensor using screen printing processes for electrode film deposition. The applied measurement method based on microcontrollers is also reported. In this specific case, the microcontroller is used to measure RH by means of a capacitive sensor with a simple low-cost electronic system. In addition, a comparison between two different types of polyester substrates [Melinex (DuPont) and CG3460 (3M)] is shown. Both polyester substrates have similar properties, and only the thickness is different (175 μm for Melinex and 100 μm for CG3460). A nonlineal response has been obtained in this type of sensors. In order to linearize the response and reduce the external hardware, an artificial neural network embedded into the microcontroller has been used.

In this paper four wireless sensor network operating systems are compared in terms of power consumption. The analysis takes into account the most common operating systems—TinyOS v1.0, TinyOS v2.0, Mantis and Contiki—running on Tmote Sky and MICAz devices. With the objective of ensuring a fair evaluation, a benchmark composed of four applications has been developed, covering the most typical tasks that a Wireless Sensor Network performs. The results show the instant and average current consumption of the devices during the execution of these applications. The experimental measurements provide a good insight into the power mode in which the device components are running at every moment, and they can be used to compare the performance of different operating systems executing the same tasks.

Up to now, vibrations have mostly been sensed by measuring displacement, velocity, and acceleration. The most common types of vibration sensors are piezoelectric, capacitive, null-balance, strain gage, optoelectronic, resonance beam, and piezoresistive. We present a low-cost and low-power vibration detector based on the measurement of magnetic field variations induced in a recent SS501 giant magnetoresistance (GMR) magnetic sensor, for which has never been applied. Vibrations on small ferromagnetic pieces disturb the Earth's magnetic field. These weak perturbations can be detected and measured over the assumed constant Earth's magnetic field, which is uniform over a wide area. A novel array configuration of three half-bridge GMR sensors powered in chain is used to measure magnetic field variations in the X-, Y-, and Z-axis with a very low power consumption. This paper includes a characterization of the novel GMR sensors and describes the practical design and implementation of a vibration detector. Two examples demonstrate the utility of these sensors: one for measuring the rotating speed of a small drilling machine and its vibrations at different speeds (in revolutions per minute) and the other one for measuring the characteristic 440-Hz vibration of a tuning fork (A key), which is used to tune musical instruments. The results are shown and discussed.