ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews energy-efficient system-level architectures, smart power management strategies, and low power sensory circuit topologies that are improving efficiency in power-constrained multichannel recording arrangements. Specifically, current-supply modulation and duty cycling are power scheduling techniques consisting of switching specific building blocks between an active and an idle state with low duty cycle. Adaptive mechanisms have also been proposed for achieving high power efficiency. An analog front-end topology employing a power scheduling strategy is presented. The power consumption of the individual nodes is therefore a topic of the highest importance, which tends to be dominated by the radio frequency transmit and receive functions in the vast majority of applications. The chapter surveys the state of the art in wake-up radio circuit design as a means to achieve fully asynchronous ultralow power wireless sensor networks. There is growing interest in the development of autonomous small-scale devices capable of sensing/actuating and performing communication and processing tasks in personnel healthcare technology.
