Energy Harvesting

Recently there has been consolidation in the RTLS and WSN market, with acquisitions of companies such as Aeroscout, MicroStrain and Dust Networks.

Working on developing prototypes and innovative products incorporating wireless sensor and energy harvesting technologies, presentations from electronics giant Intel and innovative start-up NovioTech will excite attendees with their proposed solutions to achieve optimized power consumption performance characteristics.

The Internet of Things was conceived in Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998.

A new IDTechEx report requested by several of the world's largest chemical companies looks at the families of element and compound that will be most widely used in the new electronics and electrics.

Although thermoelectric phenomena have been used for heating and cooling applications quite extensively, electricity generation has only seen very limited market in niche applications and it is only in recent years that interest has increased regarding new applications of energy generation through thermoelectric harvesting.

Energy harvesters and wireless sensors are not always deployed under "a walk in the park" operating environments. If anything, the most interesting applications for these technologies tend to be in sectors where conditions are harsh or devices are inaccessible once deployed.

On Tuesday the 15th of May in Berlin, Germany, IDTechEx recognised innovation once more with the Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks & RTLS awards, in a ceremony that took place on the first day of the IDTechEx conference on the topic.

These naturally occurring, but mostly manufactured, piezoelectric materials are fast becoming a hot topic for exploration in energy harvesting, exhibiting 10 times as much voltage output compared with polycrystalline PZT(1) are utilized in applications where the emphasis is on high output and sensitivity.

Starting with more humble killer applications such as meter reading in buildings, WSN will grow rapidly from $0.58 billion in 2012 to $2.4 billion in 2022 according to IDTechEx research.

The gross sales of presenting companies at Printed Electronics Europe next week - including end users, integrators and providers, is more than €700 Billion annually. Attend the event in Berlin, on April 3-4 to learn how these organisations are progressing printed electronics.