A Wireless Battery-less Seat Sensor for Autonomous Vehicles

In this paper, a miniaturized battery-less passive transponder for wireless seat sensing is designed and demon-strated. As automobiles become smarter, more sensors are required to monitor multiple parameters within and outside the vehicle. Naturally with a greater number of sensors, the amount of wire harnesses required to transfer data and power supply will increase thus leading to increase in weight and cost of vehicle. Battery-free wireless sensors are an excellent alternative to wired sensors to meet this challenge. In addition, battery-less senors offer easier service and design or packaging flexibility. In this paper, a system which powers and reads magnetic switch sensor for seat belt status detection is demonstrated based on a wireless battery-less RFID platform.