Low Power Wake-Up Receivers for Underwater Acoustic Wireless Sensor Networks

This article reports two low power wake-up receiver (WuRx) circuits (Type A and B) for underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks. The proposed circuits realize the same novel method to extract the wake-up call from the acoustic signals received by a sensor node using different circuit topologies. This is accomplished by comparing the amplitude and the duration of the received pulses to a predefined code. A combination of these two parameters provides a safe and robust decoding system. The values and duration of the predefined code can be adjusted by tuning the biasing voltages in the circuits. The main advantages of the presented designs are modularity and tunability. To verify the operation of the proposed system, an ASIC has been realized. The WuRxs have been characterized in terms of tuning, duty cycle, and power consumption. Both WuRxs can consume less than 0.5 mu W. Type A occupies an area of 0.058 mm2, has a data rate of 250 bit/s, and presents the lowest power consumption reported, consuming 265 nW and 61 nW in active and sleep modes, respectively.