Optimize, Learn and Prototype Wireless Information and Power Transmission

Radio waves carry both energy and information. Nevertheless, energy and information have traditionally been treated separately. Imagine instead a wireless network where information and energy flow together through the wireless medium. Wireless communication, or Wireless Information Transfer (WIT), and Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) would then refer to two extreme strategies respectively targeting communication‐only and power‐only. A unified Wireless Information and Power Transfer (WIPT) design would on the other hand have the ability to softly evolve in between those two extremes to make the best use of the RF spectrum and radiations and the network infrastructure to communicate and energize. In this talk, I will discuss recent progress on laying the foundations of the envisioned network by establishing a novel and unified signal theory for transmission and identifying the fundamental tradeoff between conveying information and power wirelessly. Recent results on the prototyping and experimentation of those new signals and entire WIPT architecture will also be discussed.