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Mark Wehrmeister
Wireless sensors that require no external power source or battery maintenance? ...
Patk0317
This is an interesting concept. As The "Internet of Things" takes shape these ...
Wireless sensors push smart machines into Green revolution
Phil Ling
3/20/2011 9:45 AM EDT
STMicroelectronics, ARaymond and Micropelt are jointly presenting thermal-energy harvesting-based solutions to power 'smart sensors' and 'smart microsystems' at the Hannover Fair under the common theme of 'Green Solutions.' The three companies are partnering to exhibit the entire value chain of self-sustaining wireless systems in a joint booth (Hall 8, D26).
Wireless sensor and actuator systems are strong future contributors to energy and resource efficiency; the improvement of asset health and uptime; and more efficient condition-based maintenance and operating safety of machines and production equipment. Ubiquitous wireless systems are indispensable to achieving a huge green impact; however, they are a viable option only if local battery maintenance can be circumvented.
Micropelt has developed chip-sized thermogenerators (TEGs) which turn local heat fluxes into electrical energy for ultra-low-power systems. Due to the highest power density in a few square millimeters of footprint, Micropelt's chip-sized thermogenerators have attracted many customers worldwide. STMicroelectronics, one of the world's biggest chip makers, and ARaymond, a worldwide supplier to the automotive and solar industries, are presenting solutions they have co-developed with Micropelt.
ST focuses on components supporting energy harvesters in their complementary role of an energy generator with energy storage. Consequently, the development efforts between ST and Micropelt focused on an evaluation system featuring ST's new robust and long-life solid-state thin-film rechargeable battery (EnFilm) combined with Micropelt's Thermal Electrical Generator (TEG) chip. The Perpetual Energy Module (PEM-TE01) system demonstrates how these two technologies can provide uninterrupted power and establish a virtual perpetual-energy solution to a long-life and maintenance-free wireless system.
ARaymond's engineers teamed up with Micropelt to develop a new industrial approach to hermetically packaging Micropelt's energy-harvesting wireless-sensor evaluation platform, TE-Power NODE. The joint effort has resulted in ARaymond's fully energy-autonomous wireless temperature sensor Heat BiTe for use in solar-thermal and similar systems which carry a liquid that is warmer or colder than ambient. Micropelt uses a variation of this liquid harvester solution which features a flat interface for attachment to any warm surface to ruggedize their evaluation kit to IP47- and IP48-level. It is now called TE-Power MOTE.
This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.
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DrQuine
3/20/2011 5:01 PM EDT
How much of a temperature differential is required between the "warm surface" and the room for the system to work? How does the device efficiently shed heat so that it doesn't rise to the substrate temperature and lose the ability to generate power?
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Patk0317
3/21/2011 1:49 AM EDT
This is an interesting concept. As The "Internet of Things" takes shape these types of systems for low power sensors will become increasingly important.
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Mark Wehrmeister
3/27/2011 1:02 AM EDT
Wireless sensors that require no external power source or battery maintenance? If this can be perfected, hopefully the next thing that can be tackled is the common household smoke detector! Seriously, this is an important advance in sensor technology and will enable many things that we cannot even think of right now.
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