Appliance Design - September 2007 - (Page 10) NEWS WATCH characteristics defining them and driving them. The energy harvesting companies are, for the most part, small start-up companies. Many are in Europe, like EnOcean, Ubiwave and Perpetuum. Companies like Powercast and Perpetuum have commercial products, while others are still in the prototype stage. Perpetuum, for example, recently exhibited a working demonstration of its PMG17 vibration-harvesting microgenerator at the Sensors Expo in June. Other companies offering piezoceramic materials, such as The FACE Companies, are more established, with energy harvesting only one of the industries they supply to. “Like most emerging technologies, the energy-harvesting landscape has many specialized competitors,” observed the report’s author, Linnea Brush, senior analyst with Darnell Group. “The profiles in this report cannot cover them all, but it does provide a detailed review of the more significant products and technologies.” Many of the energy harvesting companies have found it useful to partner with IC companies. IDS Microchip has a near field communications solution they did for Texas Instruments, for example. EnOcean is working with the Fraunhofer Institute. Perpetuum is working with Dust Networks. Many of these companies are members of the ZigBee Alliance, as well. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard (ZigBee) is now expected to co-exist with other standards such as Z-Wave, Insteon, LonTalk and others. Everyone agrees that wireless technologies are “hot” and that customers want low-power, highly reliable devices. Where demand differences arise is in the area of batteries. Some customers want batteries, and some do not. In general, the power requirements of batteries need to be minimized, and both established companies and startups are trying to meet this need. EaglePicher, Tadiran and Varta, for example, are capitalizing on their existing lithium technologies to offer micro batteries for energy-harvesting applications. Front Edge, Oak Ridge MicroEnergy and Solicore are newer companies offering ultra-thin-film batteries. Although many energy-harvesting solutions (such as microgenerators) are aimed at eliminating batteries, realistically, batteries are still likely to be used in many wireless sensor networks. The most established companies offering wireless sensor network and energy-harvesting solutions are the power management IC companies. Texas Instruments, Nordic Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics and others all have a variety of products targeted at ultra-low-power applications. Some, like Advanced Linear Devices, have specific modules for energy harvesting. These products are expected to help drive down costs, since high volumes are necessary to achieve market penetration. Radiocrafts, for instance, is aiming for high-volume manufacturing. Most of these companies expect to see commercial adoption of ZigBee products and related energy-harvesting solutions in two to three years. For more information on Darnell’s Energy Harvesting, Micro Batteries and Power Management ICs series: “Competitive Environment,” visit www.darnell.com. < For more Information Enter 101 10 applianceDESIGN AD12064Port.indd 1 September 2007 11/7/06 11:26:50 AM www.applianceDESIGN.com http://www.pepiusa.com http://www.pepiusa.com http://www.darnell.com http://www.appliancedesign.com
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