Powercast's Sustainable, Battery-Free RFID Sensor Condition Monitoring System Now Customized for Data Centers

Powercast Corporation, the go-to source for both off-the-shelf and customized wireless charging solutions, has collaborated with Asset Vue to customize Powercast's RFID-powered, wire-and-battery-free sensor condition monitoring system to meet the needs of data centers.

Powercast's RFID sensing technology – known for enabling maintenance-free monitoring because it can power itself perpetually from industry-standard RAIN RFID inventory readers instead of wires and batteries – has been named a finalist in the RFID Journal 2025 Best New Product Awards. Powercast's technology will be displayed in booth #615 at the RFID Journal LIVE! show this week in Las Vegas, NV, May 6 – 8, where award winners will be announced May 8.

RAIN RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology leverages the RFID readers used in inventory management, logistics and retail applications to connect to the internet any item bearing an RFID tag, allowing users to identify and locate all such items. Adding Powercast's wireless RF-energy-harvesting chips and sensors (temperature, humidity, light, etc.) to these RFID tags elevates their functionality beyond identification to enable real-time smart monitoring that results in smarter supply chains capable of locating live shipments, tracking the state of perishable goods and more, all without wires and batteries.

"Asset Vue wanted an affordable, maintenance-free asset monitoring system for its data center that didn't require sensors to be hardwired or ongoing battery maintenance," said Charles Greene, Ph.D., COO and CTO of Powercast. "They knew our technology did that, so they asked us to customize a system for them; specifically, they needed precise monitoring of extreme temperature and humidity to prevent failure of mission-critical equipment they store on metal server racks, and the ability to quickly locate tagged items on those crowded racks." 

Powercast provides engineering and productization services when customization is needed. "We already have a 'Find Tag' feature with LEDs to easily locate equipment, but we modified our technology to meet Asset Vue's other needs," continued Greene. "First, to keep equipment cool, we halved the size of our RFID tags to facilitate more airflow on the server racks. Second, because metal can diminish an RF signal and server racks are made of metal, we redesigned our RF receiving antenna to minimize interference from metal." The system is currently in beta testing at Asset Vue, and Powercast plans to roll it out later this year.

How Powercast's RFID Condition Monitoring Technology Works, Leveraging RFID Readers as its Power Source:

Since standard RAIN RFID readers emit an RF signal that's similar to that of Powercast's RF wireless power transmitters, these readers can substitute for the transmitters, becoming the source of wireless power that perpetually powers the sensor tags without wires or batteries, eliminating the need/expense for hardwiring sensors, ongoing battery maintenance, or installing custom readers or RF transmitters.

Powercast's Powerharvester® PCC110 receiver chip embedded in the RFID sensor tags harvests RF and data sent over the air from any RFID reader within range, which can be up to 40 meters depending on the application. A single RFID reader can power many tags at once located over a large area as long as they're within range. Readers can be fixed infrastructure installed in the ceiling, or handheld readers used by employees.

The Powerharvester chip then converts the RF to usable DC to both power the tags and communicate data. A microcontroller and sensors receive power, measure conditions, and report that data back to the reader.

Peel-back adhesive on the backs of the RFID sensor tags make them easy to install anywhere.

Powercast Corporation | https://www.powercastco.com