EnABLES Newsletter Issue 2 – September 2019

Highlights

Our second EnABLES Newsletter
Free-of-charge access to expertise on energy harvesting, storage and micro-power management
Meet us at PowerMEMS 2019, one of the events where EnABLES will be present

2^nd EnABLES Newsletter – September 2019

Welcome to our second EnABLES Newsletter. Since our 1^st newsletter sent in March a lot has been achieved by our EnABLES research infrastructure project with the mission to create ‘self-sustaining’ energy solutions to ‘power the internet of things’ based on energy harvesting, storage, micro-power management and system integration activities. In this newsletter we will highlight a number of the achievements, such as the webinar, EnABLES contribution to the Smart System Integration conference and the Thermo-Electric Generator development at CEA-Liten. You are now part of a ‘PowerIoT’ ecosystem of >300 people, we look forward to hearing about your challenges and opportunities, informing you about our activities and giving you the opportunity to network, collaborate and learn.

Eleven world leading research centres and Universities in Europe are part of this initiative and our access centres are available – via the Transnational Access program (TA) – for free-of-charge expertise on energy harvesting, storage and micro-power management to do feasibility studies:

Access centres:: Tyndall National Institute (co-ordinator), Fraunhofer (IMS & IIS), CEA (Leti & Liten), IMEC The Netherlands
Virtual Access:: University of Perugia, University of Southampton
Knowledge hubs:: KIT, University of Bologna, Politecnico di Torino

What are our power related challenges?

Industry challenge:: The world will have 1 trillion IoT devices by 2025 all needing a power source. We need to eliminate the need for battery replacement where possible by developing energy harvesting solutions and/or finding ways to reduce the power consumption of devices.
Research excellence challenge:: Get academic and industry developers of energy harvesting components and systems as well as IoT devices to work together to collaboratively develop application orientated solutions.

The newsletter will be sent approximately every three months. The objectives of the newsletter are to disseminate and highlight EnABLES expertise and achievements, show progress of ongoing and completed EnABLES activities, and announce ‘Power IoT’ related events. Feel free to visit the EnABLES website and/or to contact us for further information.

Some achievements to date

Smart System Integration conference

The Smart System Integration SSI2019 conference was held in Barcelona in April, bringing together experts in smart systems and their applications from all over Europe. SSI is closely affiliated with EPoSS and there were 2 EPoSS special sessions at the event.

EnABLES was actively involved with a paper presented on behalf of the consortium by Mike Hayes at the ‘Success stories/EU projects’ session and co-hosting an exhibition booth space with session participants. The paper provides an overview of the reasons why EnABLES is needed, particularly for enabling researchers address key challenges such as extending battery life of wireless IoT edge devices, and, where possible, eliminating the need for battery replacement. The transnational access (TA) and virtual access (VA) programs used in EnABLES were outlined. Several Transnational Access queries (free of charge feasibility studies) were received at SSI some of which have already been approved and started. A copy of the paper can be found here EnABLES: European Infrastructure Powering the Internet of Things.

Transnational Access (TA)

Two researchers from Comberry visiting CEA-Leti to perform deposition and component testing, as part of TA Project RefNo003 allowing free-of-charge access to Energy Storage expertise.

Thermo-electric Generator (TEG) development at CEA-Liten

Energy harvested by thermo-electric generators is one the technologies developed by the EnABLES project under the Joint Research Activities (JRAs). Performances of such a technology depend hugely on the intrinsic properties of the thermo-electric material and on the integration of the harvester in the final device. Research activities performed in the frame of the EnABLES project address these two main topics.

Regarding properties of thermo-electric materials, three main parameters need to be measured: Seebeck coefficient, electrical and thermal conductivities. But thermo-electric thin films can present an-isotropic properties (i.e. they behave differently depending on physical orientation). Current methods to access in-plane and cross-plane properties are separated and very time-consuming. CEA-Liten is developing a technique consisting of integrating all patterns needed for the measurement of the three thermo-electric properties in these two directions. Specific thermo-electric test structures have been defined and integrated onto a new design as shown:

Integration of TEG test structures

Regarding integration, a COMSOL model of a thermo-electric power supply for Bluetooth LE wireless sensor has been developed and verified. The wireless sensor is comprised of a heat interface, a commercial TEG, a heat sink and an electronic board with power management and Bluetooth module and temperature sensor. The model focuses on optimising the heat flow and the power output of the whole system so that potential users that determine its suitability and performance under various conditions.

COMSOL model of TEG for BLE sensor

EnABLES hosts online Webinar

EnABLES hosted their first webinar on 13^th June 2019. Nearly 100 registrations were received from across the Europe and beyond for this live online event. The webinar was presented by Mike Hayes (EnABLES Coordinator) and Julie Donnelly (EnABLES Access Manager) who gave an overview of the program and its various offerings from the consortium partners’ infrastructure and expertise. Our offerings of energy harvesting, energy storage, micro-power management and system integration, not forgetting the two online energy vibrations databases, were all described.

A big THANK YOU to all of you who joined us live that day. We were delighted with the number registrations for the event, questions submitted and follow up after the event. We are looking forward to delivering the next webinar in a few months’ time.

The webinar session was recorded and is accessible via this link: EnABLES Webinar. Have a look at the webinar now and feel free to email for any questions.

Free-of-charge access to power-related expertise

EnABLES provides fully funded access to key European research infrastructures (RIs) in powering the Internet of Things (IoT). Industrial and academic researchers & integrators can now address the key challenges required to enable truly ‘invisible’, unobtrusive and self-powered (autonomous) wireless devices by having access to state-of-the art facilities and expertise at the EnABLES partner sites. This collaborative approach will help bridge the gap between capturing ‘ambient’ energy supply from energy harvesting sources (EH), integrating new devices for energy storage (ES) and developing micro-power management (MPM) solutions for miniaturised system operation.

Objectives

Create a “powering the IoT” community with a mind-set change in how parts and systems are developed based on rapid access to advanced research infrastructure
Enable development of wireless IoT devices and miniaturized, autonomous sensors
Develop and integrate energy harvesting and energy storage solutions
Develop energy management solutions within self-powered smart sensor systems

Benefits for Participants or Members

Free of charge rapid access to undertake feasibility studies at EnABLES partner sites
Access to standardised and inter-operable libraries
Being part of a strong network to form collaborations
Availability of expert technical advice and support (lab, equipment, tools and libraries)
Opportunity to use state-of-the-art tools to optimize system level performance

Upcoming events

EnABLES has created a calendar of events that it has targeted for dissemination. Check out our list of forthcoming events on our website: Upcoming Events

In the coming weeks the following events are planned. People from EnABLES will be present on these events. Feel free to contact them for your questions and to know more from EnABLES.

Smart Production Solutions (SPS) on 28-29 November in Nuremberg, Germany
19^th International Conference on Micro and Nanotechnology for Power Generation and Energy Conversion Applications (PowerMEMS 2019) on 2-6 December 2019 in Kraków, Poland (see announcement below in this newsletter)

Power MEMS 2019 in Kraków, Poland

The Power MEMS conference is one of the major events on energy harvesting, micro-power management, energy storage and system integration. This years’ edition is taking in place from December 2^nd until 6^th in Kraków, Poland. Since the focus of PowerMEMs matches closely with the EnABLES project, a major contribution to PowerMEMs is planned from the EnABLES partners in December. There will be an exhibition booth showing different modules, devices and systems from the EnABLES partners like Tyndall, Fraunhofer IIS and Politecnico di Torino. Furthermore, several presentations are planned, among them an overview of the EnABLES project and a number of specific talks covering outputs from the Joint Research Activities. Finally, EnABLES will organize a class on power management in the PowerMEMS school.

Topics for future newsletters

This newsletter is for your benefit – we are open to suggestions, what would you like to hear about? At present we are thinking about:

Success stories – examples of funded TAs
Individual spotlight on partners, e.g. technology offerings, key personnel
An introduction to our JRA activities

Do not hesitate to contact us – either via our website or simply by replying to this newsletter – to share your suggestions and feedback. Thanks in advance.

The EnABLES consortium consists of the following access centres and knowledge hubs. Feel free to contact them with your questions.

Access Centres

Tyndall National Institute, Ireland
Commisariat a L’energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA-Leti, CEA-Liten), France
Fraunhofer IIS, Fraunhofer IMS, Germany
IMEC Nederland, Netherlands

Knowledge Hubs

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Alma Mater Studiorum – Universita di Bologna, Italy
Universita degli Studi di Perugia, Italy
University of Southampton, UK

HOW DO I APPLY FOR ACCESS?
A very simple on-line service for applying for Transnational Access (TA) is available through the EnABLES website. Libraries of parts based on metrology and/or simulation files will also be available.

Previous issues:
Mar 2019 |