Maintenance-free wireless multi-functional sensing enabled by electrostatic generator

Conventional self-powered sensor nodes rely on commercial sensing and wireless modules, making it difficult to achieve both long-range and real-time sensing, due to the limited energy harvested from the environment and the module's high-power consumption. To solve this problem, a universal paradigm for self-powered sensor nodes with real-time, long-range and multi-functional sensing capability was proposed, which is achieved by lowpower signal modulation using an electrostatic generator and a surface acoustic wave resonator (SAWR)based transmitter. Once the sensor node is mechanically stimulated, the generator triggers the transmitter to generate radio frequency (RF) signals, containing both the generator's motion status which encodes the RF signal amplitude to binarized 1/0 and the information sensed by SAWR which modulates the RF signal frequency. Based on the paradigm, we demonstrated simultaneous and continuous monitoring of wind speed and temperature from two sensor nodes located over 100 m, opening up new possibilities for maintenance-free wireless sensing.