Software-Defined Radio Test-Bed for Measuring Efficiency of Multisine Waveforms in RF Power Transfer

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of multisine waveforms for radio-frequency (RF) wireless power transfer (WPT). We present a test-bed developed for experimentally assessing the end-to-end efficiency of waveforms in RF WPT. The test-bed primarily comprises a software-defined radio (SDR) transmitter and an energy harvesting receiver. We examine how the transmitter distorts digital multisine waveforms with high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), and measure the effect of varying the PAPR of clipped multisines on the end-to-end efficiency. The results reflect the poor performance of high-PAPR multisines in RF power transfer and hint towards low-PAPR signals being ideal for RF WPT.