At the recent IDTechEx conference Energy Harvesting and Storage Europe in Munich, Roy Freeland, of the ISA100.18 Power Sources Working Group, spoke on how standards with hasten the adoption of energy harvesting, not least in Wireless Sensor Networks WSN. WSN are mesh networks commonly described as third generation active RFID, where every tag is a reader, so they are referred to as nodes or motes. Their adoption has now overtaken the earlier Real Time Locating Systems RTLS (second generation active RFID) in market value according to IDTechEx statistics. Indeed, some WSN now give location. Examples are WSN trials by Fraunhofer IIS at Universitats Klinikum in Erlangen and Bamberg Hospital described at the event. Here the WSN locates blood and matches it to tagged patients. Battery life is only 2.5 years so harvesting is eagerly sought.
Roy Freeland assessed possibilities as follows:
Roy Freeland concluded that:
Industrial Wireless Standards nearly ready
- End Users want ISA100.11a and WirelessHART convergence
WSN's need Energy Harvesters
- Peter Harrop, IDTechEx - "90% of WSN's will need Energy Harvesting"
- Dan Huber, ABB "The success of wireless will depend on wireless power supplies"
- Oil Companies (Exxon,Shell, BP) "We will trial wireless with batteries but volume roll out needs a solution to power"
Energy Harvester suppliers need to demonstrate
- Meeting user requirements
- Performance is properly specified and comparable
- Different Harvesters and Power Sources are readily interchangeable
ISA100.18 is working on standards to achieve this
For more contact:
Roy Freeland, roy.freeland@perpetuum.com
Sicco Dwars, sicco.dwars@shell.com
Top image of Roy Freeland source Drives & Conrols
For more read : Energy Harvesting and Storage for Electronic Devices 2009-2019
