PowerMEMS provides its customers with products and solutions that offer unparalleled flexibility in configuration, ease-of-use and quality that ensures survivability in the toughest environments. But, as sophisticated as it might be under the surface, to our users, it is as simple as could be…… it’s a battery replacement.
Based on pioneering work, PowerMEMS has achieved break-through efficiencies in the generation and conversion of widely available ambient energies. The 3-Dimensional Ambient Energy Harvester (3-D AEH) has been designed for ease-of-use, such as in-field configurability, and the ability to generate sufficient and reliable energy across a wide range of application environments. The name says it all:
Three-dimensional – In a single device, we are introducing technology for conversion of three different energy groups; Solar (light), Heat, and Kinetic (mechanical). As such, we do not have to depend on sufficient availability of any one energy source in all possible locations where sensors could be deployed.
Ambient Energy – We acquire energy that is available in the environment in which the sensor node is placed. Sometimes the energy is naturally occurring, such as solar energy. Other times the energy is made available as a by-product, or waste, that is produced by other devices or equipment. Sometimes that energy is in the form of excess heat or possibly in the form of vibration as often found in large rotating machinery such as motors and generators.
Harvester – It’s all about the acquisition of energy, conversion of that energy into electrical current and storage until the energy is needed by the operating device.
Figure 1 shows the component elements of the 3-D AeH as they exist as plates of energy generating capacity, and storage. The core unit will bundle single plates for each primary energy as well as one for the energy store. This basic configuration should generate the targeted 5-7 mW across greater than 50% of all operating environments. For lower energy density environments or higher power requirements from the enabling device, additional plates can be stacked (configured) as needed to reach the required power generation level.
Of paramount importance to our customers is a solution that generates sufficient energy across a very wide range of environmental conditions. To address this, we have combined three critical energy conversion technologies which are solely dependent upon renewable, environmentally available energy sources and no artificial fuel source.
Since device energy consumption is asynchronous with the process of energy capture and conversion, the provisioning of sufficient storage capacity is also critical. As a result, we incorporate an entirely new construct for energy storage that is particularly suited for the WSNs but can also scale down to on-chip microsystems enabling break-through storage densities.