Analyzing standard RF Waveform Designs for WPT

The possibility to harvest energy from ambient radio-frequency (RF) sources has intrigued humankind since past several decades. In this context, there has been a tremendously growing research interest in the field of wireless power transfer (WPT) using the RF regime of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. In this paper, we investigate the aspect of real-time energy harvesting (EH) via different types of waveform designs such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), Square, Triangular, Sinusoidal, and Sawtooth. We make use of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and a Powercast P21XXCSREVB EH module to carry out the experiments on practical device performance. Specifically, we are interested in obtaining some insights based on the comparison between the aforementioned waveform designs from the perspectives of separation distance between the USRP and P21XXCSR-EVB EH module, and power emission via USRP. Correspondingly, the demonstration of the EH is provided in terms of the above-mentioned investigation metrics, while seeking the best waveform to support WPT.