Energy Harvesting Autonomous Sensor Network Nodes

With the thriving Internet of Things (IoT) concept the demand for different sensors, sensor networks and wireless solutions has increased rapidly. Often the demand is for small size (measures in millimetres) solutions which makes it demanding for the sensor and electronics suppliers as well as packaging companies to fit everything in small package. Further on the need for self-powered solutions that could operate for several years without changing of batteries is current. Unfortunately the industry has been so far unable to provide single solution for the power and integration. This project aims at combining several independent power production means (vibrational energy harvesting, betavoltaics, thermal electric energy harvesting as well as magnetostrictive energy harvesting) to a single package which is complemented by small scale energy storage (supercapacitor and/or microbattery) and a very low power RF communication unit. Everything is heterogeneously packaged in to for a module which can be then merged with various sensors. The project thus aims to develop enabling technologies (maily hardware (HW)) and test them in various IoT applications to allow future IoT applications to concentrate more on software (SW). The system is planned to be fully modular enabling selection of best energy production, storage and electronics for different applications. The functionality will be demonstrated in several industrial applications: aerospace, automotive, wind turbine, infrastructure structure monitoring systems, nonintrusive torque measurement.