Create your own data and energy integrated communication network: A brief tutorial and a prototype system

In order to satisfy the ever-increasing energy appetite of the massive battery-powered and batteryless communication devices, radio frequency (RF) signals have been relied upon for transferring wireless power to them. The joint coordination of wireless power transfer (WPT) and wireless information transfer (WIT) yields simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) as well as data and energy integrated communication network (DEIN). However, as a promising technique, few efforts are invested in the hardware implementation of DEIN. In order to make DEIN a reality, this paper focuses on hardware implementation of a DEIN. It firstly provides a brief tutorial on SWIPT, while summarising the latest hardware design of WPT transceiver and the existing commercial solutions. Then, a prototype design in DEIN with full protocol stack is elaborated, followed by its performance evaluation.