energy harvesting-enable wireless n remote sensor_en

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Energy Harvesting Technologies -

enabling remote and wireless sensing Costis Kompis & Simon Al iwell

Sensors and Instrumentation KTN

Sensors & Instrumentation KTN

• Covers whole supply chain of the sensing community –industry, academia, funding

bodies and government

• Mission: improve UK’s sensinginnovation by transferringknowledge to business andenabling them to access thebest science & technology

• Activity and services for sensing community

• 2000 members• 100 events• 130 proposals• £27m funding raised• 650 organisation visits• SIGs e.g. WiSIG• voice of the sector



Powering of wireless sensors is a critical barrier limiting costeffective uptake

Industry Advisory Board requested an Action Group Study

Objectives

• State of the art and centres of expertise

• Barriers to uptake & critically question applicability in industry

• Action plan for SIKTN

• Recommendations for funders

• Focus for community in UK – collaboration, events…

The Study

Approach



Support from

Report Contents

• The Technical Context

– Sensor networking, power requirements and storage,

energy harvesting and power management• Review of Energy Harvesting Technologies

– Mechanical (electrostatic, piezoelectric,electromagnetic), Light, Thermal, EM transmission,Human

• Centres of Expertise

– Research groups & companies

• Recommendations



Centres of Expertise

• Europe is world leading in EH

• Companies:

– Perpetuum (UK)

– EnOcean (Germany)

– Micropelt (Germany)

– IMEC (Belgium)

– GreenPeak Technology (Netherlands/Belgium)

• Research:

– Southampton

– Bristol – Imperial

– National Physical Laboratory

– Tyndall National Institute

– Fraunhofer Institute

– Holst Center

Key Issues

• EH has its limitations so we set out to explorethese at a practical level



Barriers & l imitations

• Power consistency &impedance matching

• Absolute minimum power

• Communicationsstandards

• Efficient power storage

• Harvesting type synergies

• Graceful degradation

• Health & safety

• Cost of ownership

• Matching expectationswith capability

• Integration of devices andexpertise

1. Power consistency

How consistent is power generated and how cansource impedance best be matched to the load required?

• Totally environment specific

• Difficult to compare devices

• Normalised power density approach e.g. nW/mm3

• Describe for specific application domain – dummyharvesters (freq., amplitude, duty cycle)

• Standard operating conditions – e.g. NPL

• Efficiency of conversion of available energy

• DC-DC boosters to power electronics

• MPPT





4. Efficient power storage

Most efficient ways to store power when inactive

so can use on start-up• Rechargeable batteries – electronics for these add

significantly to power dissipation

• Thin film lithium-ion rechargeables

• Supercapacitors• 10-100 times operational life of batteries

• more environmentally friendly• short charge time

• Storage in a MEMS device

5. Type synergies

Hybrid devices to extend operating window of sensor device or increase harvest

• Photovoltaic cells most potential• Thermoelectric and vibrational energy most available

in industrial setting

• More efficient to just store

• May be some situations where harvest vibrationaland thermal but currently easier just to scale up theindividual device

• Likely issues with integration on chip• e.g. CMOS with MEMS processes for piezoelectric

• Thermal + photovoltaic probably easiest – both DC



6. Graceful degradation

Detect impending failure or insufficient energy to

minimise impact on monitoring system• No great emphasis here yet although should be

straightforward to implement

• Algorithms to monitor capacitor

voltage

• Field reliability still something

of an unknown

7. Health & safety

Any handling issues or problems for disposal or

international transportation?

• Compared to Li-ion batteries there are few issues• Few potentially hazardous materials used

• PZT – no substitutes are yet as efficient

• Thermoelectric devices contain Bismuth (microgramquantities)

• Other than space applications radio active not used

• Total environmental impact – e.g. silicon processing

• ATEX



8. Cost of ownership

Comparing energy harvesting with batteries

• EH devices priced according to perceived benefit• Generally several £100s

• Compare to cost to change batteries – person,disruption, access e.g. $1m on an undersea rig!

• Recent study – broadly cost comparable so as costscomes down they will be cost effective where

reliability and lack of operator is vital

9. Matching expectations

Intermittent power influences condition monitoring

schedules

• Maintenance engineers used to continuousmeasurement

• Need to re-evaluate what frequency of monitoring isreally needed

• Prioritisation of most critical

pieces of machinery where

parts frequently exchangedand usual failure rates known



10. Integration of devices & expertise

Complex range of technical skills and optimisation

required • Rare skills – especially in one organisation

• Lack of systems integrators involved yet

• Driver for greater level of standardisation for interoperability and wider acceptance

Technology Readiness Levels

Energy and conversion mechanism 2008 2013 2018 2023

Macrosystems(cm3 level)

Piezoelectric (strain) 9 9 9 9

Electrostatic (vibration) 6 7 8 9

Electromagnetic (vibration) 8 9 9 9

Thermoelectric 7 8 8 9

Inductive RF 5 6 8 9

Solar cells (Si, thin film) 8 9 9 9

Microsystems

(mm3

level)

Piezoelectric thin film (strain) 4 5 5 6

Electrostatic (vibration) 3 4 5 6

Electromagnetic (vibration) 5 6 7 8

Thermoelectric 6 7 7 8

Inductive RF 4 5 6 8

Solar cells (plastic) 4 5 7 8



General Recommendations

• End user involvement in trials

• Move to standard designs

• Challenge led approach to drive innovation

• Focus on power management for whole wireless sensor node withmore holistic systems design approach

• Better performance evaluation tools & approaches

• Reassessment of monitoring needs – align expectation withcapability

• Exploration of fundamental scaling limit issues of MEMS devices• Attention to auto-tunable or broadband vibration energy harvesting

• Prevention of hype – emphasis on real practical applications

EC Specific Recommendations

• Continue prioritisation of Embedded Systems Design within thesubsequent FP7 work programmes and extend the scope to explicitlyembrace the development and practical application of EHT.

• Extend the support for EHT at the micro-scale such as the plannedFET Proactive call ‘Towards Zero-Power ICT’

• Initiate open consultations (eg. Support Actions) to uncover anddescribe in greater detail the key applications scenarios where energyharvesting enabled wireless sensing could have the highest impact. – These findings could then be used to frame the challenges set in the calls. Any call

should require the involvement of end-users.

• Adopt a challenge led competition approach similar to DARPA’s (eg.

as part of ARTEMIS JTI) to maximise power density per unit volume of the key sub-systems in a set of categories. – These categories should include different energy sources (e.g. vibration, thermal,

light) and in different key applications scenarios.



Dissemination and Plans

• Input to stakeholders (TSB, EPSRC, EC)

• Event at IET in Nov 2008

• EPSRC Network in preparation

• Raising awareness via publications

• Support potential consortia aiming for

– FET FP7 Call ‘Towards Zero-Power ICT’

– NMP-FP7-2010-1.2-3 ‘Thermoelectric energy converters based on nanotechnology’

Wireless Sensing Showcase 2009

Programme Committee

David Adamson, National Physical Laboratory

Mike Allen, Singapore-MIT Alliance

John Gardiner, Wireless CIC

Elena Gaura, Coventry University

Roger Hazelden, TRW Conekt

Danny Hughes, K.U. Leuven

Cecilia Mascolo, University of Cambridge

George Matich, Selex Galileo

Luca Mottola, Swedish Institute of Computer Science

Vinayak Naik, Indian Institute of Science

George Roussos, Birkbeck College, University of London

Werner Schiffers, Rolls Royce

Vlasios Tsiatsis, Ericsson

Important dates

Demo submission deadline: 15 May 2009

Acceptance notification: 1 June 2009

Camera ready version: 15 June 2009

Delegate registration: 15 June 2009

Showcase Event: 2 July 2009

Call for demos in two categories

a) R&D systems and b) Commercial products.

www.wisig.org/showcase2009



Thanks for your attention

Contacts

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.sensorsktn.com/EHActionGroup

Extra slide - TRL Key

Level

Description

1 Basic principles observed and reported

2 Technology concept and/or application formulated

3 Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic

4 Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratoryenvironment

5 Component and/or breadboard validation in relevantenvironment

6 System/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in arelevant environment

7 System prototype demonstration in a operationalenvironment

8 Actual system completed and 'flight qualified' through testand demonstration

9 Actual system 'flight proven' through successful missionoperations

Documents

energy harvesting-enable wireless n remote sensor_en