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Wireless Acoustic Emission Sensor Powered by Microwave Energy
Abstract
This paper presents the development of a wireless Acoustic Emision (AE) sensor powered by a microwave energy harvester. In addition to the wireless transponder consisting of two antennas and a frequency mixer, the wireless AE sensor is equipped with a voltage follower that couples the high impedance of the Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensor (PWAS) to the low impedance of the frequency mixer. A microwave energy harvester was introduced to convert the microwave interrogation signal to a DC voltage for powering the voltage follower. The design and implementation of the RF powered wireless AE sensor is presented. The RF energy harvester, the voltage follower, and the wireless channel were characterized by the ultrasound pitch-catch and pencil lead break experiments.