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.

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.