Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have found a new type of energy harvesting module which extracts energy from radio frequencies (RF).
Typically called 'waste energy', these modules convert the RF signals into DC voltage which can be used by low-powered devices. The radio frequency energy harvesting modules could reduce the dependency on batteries for certain applications. Remote areas and certain situations where swapping batteries regularly is not possible.
This research is a collaboration with other researchers from Tohoku University in Japan and the University of Messina in Italy. In the press release we can see that the research team are clear that such technology helps to reduce our dependency on batteries. This would also reduce the environmental impact of batteries, extending device lifetimes and enabling new types of wireless sensor networks and IoT devices in situations where battery replacement is not pragmatic.
