SEMINAR: Smart Fully Harvested Ultra-low Power Sensor NodesThe

Guest : Dr. Karim Ali

Title : Smart Fully Harvested Ultra-low Power Sensor Nodes The

Date / Time : March 4, 2026 13:40

Location : Online :https://sabanciuniv.zoom.us/j/2554580251

Abstract: In battery-less sensor nodes, the replacement of the battery with a harvester offers several advantages in terms of miniaturization, low fabrication and maintenance cost, long lifespan and low environmental impact, compared to battery-powered systems. Also, the latter are generally duty-cycled and mostly dormant to keep the average power within limits despite power-hungry blocks (e.g., radio transceiver, imagers), at the cost of reduced system availability. Instead, battery-less systems can be on and available at any time, if their peak power fits the instantaneous power from the harvester. Accordingly, harvester and system size are largely determined by the system peak power and are typically in the centimetre (millimetre) scale at tens of µWs power, e.g. under indoor solar cells, wireless power sources.

In this talk, various proposals are introduced to enable smart, fully energy-harvested sensor nodes with capabilities such as system activity monitoring, intelligent image sensing, and wireless data transmission. Ultra-low-power wireless transmission is achieved through PLL-less backscattering communication with event-driven calibration, which supports multiple commodity standards. Efficient smart imaging is enabled by in-tile computation and reduced imaging bit depth. Additionally, a 100-pW wake-up receiver (WuRx), designed with ultra-low-power analog blocks, allows continuous operation of the sensor node under various environmental conditions (e.g., low light). Together, these solutions support the goal of achieving smart, fully energy-harvested sensor nodes.

Bio:Dr. Karim Ali received the bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering from the Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt, in 2010, and Msc degree in electronics engineering from American university in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt in 2013 and Ph.D. degree in electrical and Computer engineering from National University in Singapore (NUS), Singapore, in 2019. He is currently a senior research fellow at electrical and computer engineering department, National University of Singapore. He held various positions previously at Intel corporation, Oregon, USA, and Mentor Graphics, Cairo, Egypt, and Middle East Technical university, Cyprus. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 publications on Journals and conferences proceedings. He is an author of a book chapter and five patents. His research interest includes low power and self-powered smart sensor nodes, flexible electronics, non-volatile memories and ultra-low power analog circuits.