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Title: All-Digital Plug and Play Passive RFID Sensors for Energy Efficient Building Control

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1874670· OSTI ID:1874670
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  1. Clemson Univ., SC (United States)
  2. Phase IV Engineering, Boulder, CO (United States)
  3. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)

This is the final report for the project “All-Digital Plug and Play Passive RFID Sensors for Energy Efficient Building Control”, funded by DOE, and performed by Clemson University, Phase IV Engineering and Harvard University from October 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020. The main objective of this project is to develop, demonstrate and pre-commercialize a novel, plug & play, battery-free, wireless sensor technology to enable low-cost (<$10 per node) indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity measurement for energy efficient building controls and operations. The proposed technology is based on the novel concept of all-digital sensing and its seamless integration with the passive RFID technology. This project focuses on the design, fabrication, material optimization, interrogation electronics, validation, and demonstration of the novel sensor nodes for building applications. The specific objectives of this research program include: (1) Design, fabricate and optimize a compact, robust, and high-resolution digitizer, which could convert rotation angle into digital numbers. (2) Develop the multi-physics-based modeling and simulation of the temperature/humidity transducer to derive a rational design of the architecture, dimension, structure, materials (i.e., mechanical, electrical, thermal and hygroscopic) properties and functions of the sensor node. (3) Design, fabricate and optimize the bi-material based humidity sensitive coil which could linearly transduce the environmental relative humidity variations to rotation angles. (4) Design, fabricate and optimize an UHF RFID platform which could support long-range passive wireless communications of 8-bit digital numbers. (5) Design, fabricate and optimize the miniaturized all-digital sensor using MEMS technology. (6) Validate the integrated all-digital sensing system in a real building environment to test the system’s performance.

Research Organization:
Clemson Univ., SC (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
DOE Contract Number:
EE0007683
OSTI ID:
1874670
Report Number(s):
Final-Report-Clemson-University-DE-EE0007683
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English