RePWR: Wireless Power Transfer within Reinforced Concrete

Structural health monitoring of critical infrastructure is key to protect large structures from critical and potentially catastrophic failure. It is clear that for long-term and sustained operation, energy must be harvested from some source. Although a large amount of work has considered how to power sensors on the exterior of structures with solar panels or vibration harvesting, very little attention was given to the problem of how to power sensors deep within a structure e.g. within its foundations. In this seminar, we are going to talk whether it is possible to wirelessly power sensors deep within concrete using wireless power transfer (WPT).