Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer in IoT-based Scenarios: Architectures, Challenges, and Prototype Validation

As the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more widely promoted, the number of terminal nodes is expected to continue rising. This poses significant challenges for powering terminal devices and providing communication services. Fortunately, the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technique can support both information exchange and power supply at the same time. Being different from the summaries about theoretical research, this article enumerates the important roles of SWIPT in IoT-based scenarios, identifies practical challenges, and presents crucial techniques for constructing a SWIPT system from a deployment perspective. To demonstrate the cooperative relationships between the enabling techniques and the performance of the entire system, a prototype of the SWIPT system is constructed for a practical scenario. The results of the operation show that the constructed system can meet the differentiated requirements of nodes. Finally, the article summarizes the open research issues related to engineering-oriented SWIPT systems.