RF Energy Harvesting: What, Where and How (Energy Harvesting & Storage USA 2009)

Regan Zane received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1999. He then joined GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY, where he developed custom integrated circuit controllers for power management in electronic ballasts and lighting systems. Since 2001 he has been an Assistant (2001-2007) and Associate (2008-present) Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he has ongoing research programs in energy-efficient lighting systems, adaptive and robust power management systems, digital control and mixed-signal IC design for power converters, class-D digital audio power amplifiers and low power energy harvesting for wireless sensors. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and power electronics. Dr. Zane received the NSF Career Award in 2004 for his work in energy efficient lighting systems, the 2005 IEEE Microwave Best Paper Prize for his work on recycling microwave energy, the 2007 IEEE Power Electronics Society Transactions Prize Letter Award for his work on modeling of digital power converters and the 2008 IEEE Power Electronics Society Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award. He also received the 2006 University of Colorado Inventor of the Year award, 2006 Provost Faculty Achievement award, and 2008 John and Mercedes Peebles Innovation in Teaching Award. He currently serves as Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Letters, and as a member-at-large of the IEEE Power Electronics Society Administrative Committee.

 

Zoya Popovic (Fellow, IEEE) received the Dipl.Ing. degree from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia, in 1985, and the Ph.D. degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1990. Since 1990 she has been with the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, where she is currently the Hudson Moore Jr. Chaired Professor of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. Dr. Popovic was a visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, in 2001 and 2003Her research interests include high-efficiency, low-noise and broadband microwave and millimeter-wave circuits and sub-systems, quasi-optical millimeter-wave techniques for imaging, smart and multibeam antenna arrays, RF optics, and wireless powering for batteryless sensors. Dr. Popovic is the recipient of the 1993 and 2006 Microwave Prizes presented by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE MTT-S) for the best journal papers. She was the recipient of the 1996 URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal. In 1997, Eta Kappa Nu students chose her as a Professor of the Year. She received a 2000 Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists from the German Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and the 2001 Hewelett-Packard(HP)/American Society for Engineering Education(ASEE) Terman Medal for combined teaching and research excellence. Since 1991, she has graduated 32 Ph.D. students and currently advises a group of 15 graduate students, all US citizens. She has a husband physicist and three daughters who can all solder.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is a Tier 1 research institution. It has many activites related to energy harvesting and WSN, including low power electronics, RF energy harvesting, piezoelectric energy harvesting and much more.