Most associate USB and it’s hardware as a digital and system data transfer protocol only. Thinking of USB in terms of Analog and RF has only recently been a subject of interest in USB design, a necessity with the advent of USB 3 speeds and protocols. In fact, RF effects become dominant in the data transfer speeds involved with in USB 3. CurrentRF has developed a methodologies and technologies that allow server and network device USB ports, normally thought as digital and system data transfer ports, to be used as Analog/RF pickup ports for system noise and power reduction.
If one opens and ignores the data lines used for any flavor of USB, and focuses only on the resident +5V power and ground lines, one will see a rich source of RF frequencies of significant magnitude, that would enable energy harvesting techniques to be employed to recover this resident, generated energy. In fact, if one utilizes an ac coupled spectrum analyzer of sufficient bandwidth, one will not only see frequency spikes and noise related to USB data transfers, but “coupled in” frequencies and noise energies related to other aspects of servers and network devices.
