Ambient rf-powered soft nervous materials: A case study

The purpose of this work is to investigate various ways of energizing micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)-based sensors and actuators operating at low power, which can be embedded in various types of host materials without adding any extra devices as a power source. These host materials can be either soft materials or membranes, such as nylons or any low-cost polymer composite laminates. For these low-powered batteryless sensors or actuators, one of the possible power sources can be RF energy harvesters. The purpose here is to confirm the feasibility and identify the practices and critical needs of cases ranging from biomedical to general engineering applications.