Powercast's RFID-powered, wire-and-battery-free sensor monitoring system customized for data center equipment monitoring named finalist in Best of Sensors Power & Sustainability category
PITTSBURGH, June 17, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Powercast Corporation, the go-to source for the entire spectrum of wireless charging solutions, announced that its RFID-powered, wire-and-battery-free sensor condition monitoring system recently customized for data centers was named a finalist in the Best of Sensors Awards 2025 in the Power & Sustainability category. Powercast's technology will be displayed in booth #835 at Sensors Converge, June 24 – 26 in Santa Clara, CA, where award winners will be announced June 25.
Powercast collaborated with Asset Vue to customize its RFID sensing technology – known for maintenance-free monitoring because it can power itself perpetually from RAIN RFID inventory readers instead of wires and batteries – to monitor the temperature and humidity of mission-critical equipment stored on metal server racks without adding to the complexity of a data center.
Customizations included: 1) halving the size of Powercast's existing RFID sensors to fit into server racks and facilitate airflow to keep equipment cool, and 2) redesigning the RF receiving antenna to avoid interference from the metal racks while still providing long range wireless power to the sensors. The system is currently in beta testing at Asset Vue's data center, and Powercast plans to roll it out to other data centers later this year.
"Asset Vue wanted an affordable, maintenance-free equipment monitoring system for its data center that didn't require sensors to be hardwired throughout the facility, 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 our core RFID sensor tag monitoring system to meet the needs of a data center environment."
Greene continued, "Powercast's RFID sensor tags are passive, meaning they don't have a battery that will need to be changed. But unlike other passive tags that can only track items as they lack the power source to be able to measure conditions and write sensor data to memory, our tags can harvest RF energy from the standard RFID readers used in inventory management and logistics applications, and convert that RF to DC to power sensor measurements and communicate that data. We call this high-function passive RFID, which can enable maintenance-free conditioning monitoring not only for data centers, but also for many industries including health care, pharma and the food supply chain."
How Powercast's RFID Condition Monitoring Technology Works, Leveraging RFID Readers as its Power Source:
Because 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 as a power source, eliminating the need/expense to hardwire sensors throughout a facility, or to ever change a battery.
Powercast's Powerharvester® PCC110 receiver chip embedded in the RFID sensor tags harvests RF energy sent over the air from any RFID reader within range, which can be up to 40 meters depending on the application. The Powerharvester chip converts the RF energy to usable DC to power the tags. A microcontroller and sensors receive power, measure conditions, and report that data back to the reader through a traditional RFID tag.
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.
Peel-back adhesive on the backs of the RFID sensor tags make them easy to install anywhere.
About Powercast
Powercast Corporation, founded in 2003 and based in Pittsburgh, PA, is the go-to resource for wireless charging solutions, ranging from short to long distances and from microwatts to kilowatts, with the industry's broadest technology portfolio backed by over 300 patents worldwide. We design, develop, and manufacture semiconductor chips as well as complete wirelessly powered products, enabling various levels of customer integration.
Powercast's solutions include RF power-over-distance charging, high-performance short-range inductive charging, mid-range magnetic resonance charging and low-power sensors with up to 25-year battery life, making Powercast the industry's most comprehensive source for wireless power technology. For more information, visit https://www.powercastco.com.
Media Contact
Ross Petrocelli, Powercast, 1 (412) 455-5800, [email protected], https://www.powercastco.com
SOURCE Powercast
Share this article