What Are Some Ambient Sources of Energy for Passive Tags?

Published: February 7, 2012

Are vibration and solar energies viable power sources? And how widely have they been deployed?

—Shabana

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Shabana,

The sole source of energy for a passive tag is RF energy from a reader antenna. The definition of a passive tag is a tag with no power source of its own. There are tags that use sunlight, vibration and even energy from living trees (see Forest-Monitoring Sensors Harvest Energy From Trees), but these have not been widely deployed. Most companies utilize either passive tags, battery-assisted passive (BAP) tags or active tags with a battery.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal