Wireless Power Transmission on Martian Surface for Zero-Energy Devices

Exploration of the Red Planet is essential on the way through both human colonization and establishing a habitat on the planet. Due to the high costs of space missions, the use of distributed sensor networks has been investigated to make in situ explorations affordable. Along with this, the devices with ultra-low-power receivers, which are called zero-energy (ZE) devices, can pave the way to further discoveries about the environment of Mars. This study focuses on wireless power transmission to provide the power required by ZE devices on the Martian surface. The main motivation of this study is to investigate whether conventional harvesters and communication units can supply the required power for a long distance. The numerical results show that it is possible to deliver power to ZE devices without utilizing any sophisticated hardware. In addition, the effects of pointing error and dust storms on harvesting performance are investigated. Comprehensive simulation results reveal that harvester selection and design should be done by considering propagation channel and transmitter characteristics.
Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems