Wireless Sensors That Live Forever
From IEEE Spectrum:
Soon enough, say some engineers, miniature wireless sensors will be located in spots where it would be inconvenient, to say the least, to change their batteries—inside your body, within the steel and concrete of buildings, in the dangerous innards of chemical plants. But today, even the most robust nodes can be counted on to last only a few years. Ideally, engineers need a sensor that can last forever without external power sources or battery changes. According to research presented in December at the International Electron Devices Meeting, in Baltimore, that dream is within reach.
Two research teams tackled the problem of sensor longevity in two very different ways. Both methods rely on piezoelectric power generation, in which a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) cantilever converts mechanical motions into electrical power. However, the cantilever’s movements are propelled by very different mechanisms—one by a radioisotope and the other by vibrations harvested from the environment. In a big step forward, both methods fully powered autonomous wireless systems.
The complete article is available here.
February 6th, 2010 05:20
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