An Ultra-Low Power Multivibrator-Based Wake-up Receiver for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

In recent years wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have gained significant attention because of their implementation in many different fields. As the nodes in WSNs are typically battery-powered, their lifetime is mainly limited by the sensor nodes power consumption. A typical energy-saving solution consists in implementing wake-up receivers (WuRxs), which are responsible for the sensor node activation only when required. In this work an ultra-low power multivibrator-based WuRx concept is proposed. The WuRx is composed of several input-triggered multivibrators, which generate pulses of fixed duration. These pulses are compared to the input signal through logic gates, which are predefined according to the wake-up call. The sensor node is activated if the codes match. An implementation in TSMC- 180nm CMOS process is proposed and simulated. The WuRx consumes 0.8μW when detecting a 6ms wake-up call signal, and 58.4pW when in idle mode.