Design of RF Powered ZigBee Sensor Node and sub 1GHz RF Power Transmitter for Asset Tracking

Asset tracking is important in managing shared resources in factory, office and other environments. Often times these shared assets are not returned to their intended place of storage after use, leading to inefficient use of these resources. In order to address this, we have developed a ZigBee system with wirelessly powered ZigBee sensor node that can track the location of the assets and send the location information periodically back to the server. This makes the location of these assets available in a central server, to enable these assets be deployed efficiently. This paper presents the design of a wireless powered ZigBee 3.0 sensor node which is capable of transmitting asset location periodically to the server solely from harvested RF energy from the router with an on board super capacitor as energy reservoir. This avoids the need for battery powering of the sensor node and periodic maintenance required due to the use of battery. It also presents a design of ZigBee 3.0 router with built in sub 1 GHz RF power transmitter with up to 33 dBm transmit power to enable wireless powering of sensor node.