Sensors Converge 2023

Many of the key, enabling technologies of the Internet of Things (IoT) or Industrial IoT (IIoT) have advanced over the years to take us from the emerging concept of adding the “smart” label to everything to now delivering products in the consumer and industrial mainstreams. Self-powered energy sources (a.k.a. – energy harvesting or EH), intelligent power management, advancements in semiconductors/MEMS, low-power wireless communications, energy storage, and test/validation have converged in a perfect storm of opportunity for optimizing energy efficiency, utilization, and therefore battery life.

This half-day, pre-conference symposium will take attendees on a comprehensive journey through this vast, power IoT ecosystem by talking about each of these topics in terms of the individual nuances/challenges/needs/opportunities that all converge under the common objective of maximizing energy efficiency and extending product battery life. This will be accomplished by delivering the information in very pragmatic formats of best practices and guidelines geared primarily toward Design Engineers and those associated with architecting and delivering products to market. There will also be plenty of panel/open discussion to engage participants and facilitate the real-time needs of engineers working to get products from a bench concept into the hands of customers.

Agenda
9:00 am Brian Zahnstecher Introductory Comments

9:15 am Charge controllers, who needs them? Optimizing Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) for Energy Harvesting Applications
In the world of energy harvesting there are many sources, such as solar, TEG, and piezoelectric devices, that are commercially available over a wide range of different power levels, from microwatts to kilowatts. Each requires some output impedance control to maximize the power collected. If you are designing a system you might be wondering, how do I connect a harvester to my device? In many, but not all cases, you will need some sort of charge controller. This talk will teach about the different types of charge controllers ranging from pulse-width modulation (PWM) to maximum power point tracking (MPPT) to direct charging and how they work. The talk will also highlight differences between types of charge controllers that fall under the MPPT name. Finally, selection criteria will be presented to aid in choosing the ideal charge controller for your application.
Speaker: Brad Scandrett, VP of Engineering, PowerFilm

9:45 am Major Research Collaborations Driving Energy Harvesting TRL progression and the Power IoT Ecosystem
There has been significant progress in developing energy harvesting solutions for real-life applications to power the ‘internet of things’ (IoT) giving ultra-low power wireless sensor networks (WSN) IoT edge devices a longer battery life, in some cases full power autonomy. These are typically developed by engineers/researchers with expertise in material science, chemistry, electronics, and thermal/electrical/mechanical expertise at device level (vibrational transducers, thermoelectric generators, PV panels, supercaps, micro-batteries, power management ICs (PMICs), etc.). However, there is still a major deficit of such technologies making the full TRL progress to commercial products. RISE Sweden outlines a number of EU driven initiatives underway together with Tyndall project partners to address this.

(i) Application driven EH demonstrators that brings together an ecosystem of stakeholders to concurrently develop standardized and interoperable platforms. They include dry container multimodal transport tracking and tyre pressure monitoring (EU project Energy ECS), gas turbine monitoring (StarGate), plant equipment monitoring (HSP Gripen industry collaboration) & pacemaker powering (Smart Memphis)

(ii) Technology platform concepts that are being used on such projects that include
a. An eSiP (energy source in package) concept to optimize and integrate the various energy-harvesting-related technology platforms into ready-made modules for WSN integration (e.g. substrates, flex circuits, micro transfer printing, etc.)

b. A modular energy harvesting PMIC (power management IC) with configurable circuit blocks.

c. A battery life simulation model.

d. Real life application set ups to monitor ambient energies and power consumption.
Speaker: Cristina Rusu, RISE, Research Institutes of Sweden

10:15 am Leveraging Mechanical MEMS Energy Harvesting for IoT Applications
Energy harvesting devices promise to power smart autonomous components for the internet of things (IoT), like wireless sensor nodes. Advances in electronics and miniaturization have considerably reduced the power consumption of such microsystems to the range of micro to milliwatts. Light and thermal gradients are sources of ambient energy which are already commercially utilized to power devices by means of photovoltaic cells and thermo-generators. Depending on the application, mechanical ambient energy can provide the required power using micro-scale energy harvesting based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Although many designs have been proposed, MEMS harvesters scavenging energy from mechanical sources have not had a breakthrough success up to now. The talk highlights how a new micromanufacturing technique and improved materials enable novel degrees of freedom for the design of piezoelectric MEMS energy harvesters. Thanks to the technologies the devices are very adaptable, achieve high power densities and can harvest mechanical energy in numerous ways of excitation. This performance, flexibility and manufacturability are cornerstones toward successful deployment of mechanical micro-harvesters in IoT applications. In addition to micro-power supply, zero-power standby realized with MEMS energy harvesters will be discussed to enhance battery life.”
Speaker: Björn Gojdka, Group Lead, Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology

10:45 am 10 min networking break

10:55 am Optimization of Energy Storage in IoT Devices
IoT edge devices need to work all the time even when the primary charging source of power is not available or power cannot be supplied by conventional means. This means the device needs a reliable, internal energy storage device that can operate for years without needing to be replaced. In the past, designers only had two choices to store energy inside IoT devices, batteries and supercapacitors. Each device gives the designer characteristics that are advantageous, but neither has enough characteristics to meet all the requirements. Supercapacitors have high power densities but low energy densities, while Li-Ion batteries are the opposite. So how do you decide which device to use? Battery designers have come up with lithium titanate oxide (LTO) batteries. LTO batteries combine the positive characteristics of supercapacitors and Li-Ion batteries, while having additional benefits that make them the recommended choice for IoT devices. The presentation will highlight how LTO batteries devices can be incorporated into the IoT device eco-system to improve system reliability and efficiency. A comparison of the various properties of supercapacitors, Li-Ion and LTO batteries will demonstrate the superior characteristics LTO batteries possess. The presentation will show designers they do not need to make many trade-offs to achieve optimal performance of their IoT edge device design.
Speaker: Mark Gebbia, Sales Application Engineering Manager, Nichicon

11:25 am Panel: The EH / Power IoT Ecosystems Enter the Mainstream
Today’s pre-conference symposium has included a very comprehensive and diverse set of stakeholders from the energy harvesting and power IoT ecosystems. These stakeholders cast a wide net in terms of technical breadth and depth, which transcend the typical topics (i.e. – transducers, PMICs, energy s