As announced back in October 2010, Powercast released a development kit to showcase using RF energy for remotely powering battery-free wireless sensors. Jon Titus of Design News was gracious enough to review the kit and gave Powercast ratings of 5 out of 5 in all four areas of the review: Ease of Set-up, Quality and Clarity of Documentation, Overall Experience, and Meets Expectations.

The article is titled “Kit Harvests RF Energy” and we appreciate the subtitle “Engineers who must implement low-power devices that cannot run on local power need this kit from Powercast Corp.”

The components in the kit enable wireless and battery-free operation of the sensor nodes at a distance of 40-45 feet (13-15 meters). Each sensor board can measure temperature, humidity, light, and an external sensor. This can be used for a number of applications including building automation, energy management and industrial monitoring. Power is provided by Powercast’s new 3W transmitter (TX91501-3W-ID), which also sends factory-set data. The P2110 Powerharvester receiver converts the RF energy from the receiving antenna and stores it into a capacitor, which is then boosted to operate the wireless sensor board. The Microchip XLP 16-bit Development Board with the 802.15.4 radio is the access point.

Product Link | Press Release

In an earlier post we demonstrated an iPhone powering LEDs in close proximity using Powercast’s RF energy harvesting technology.

The video below demonstrates the use of a standard iPhone in 2G mode to generate RF energy that is used to power a battery-free wireless sensor node. The sensor node is part of Powercast’s Lifetime Power (TM) Energy Harvesting Development Kit for Wireless Senors (P2110-EVAL-01), the receiving board is based on the P2110 Powerharvester Receiver, and the antenna was slightly modified from it’s original tuning for 915MHz.

The wireless sensor node was designed by Powercast and Microchip for ultra-low power operation.  At a distance of 2 feet from the iPhone packets are transmitted from node every every 1-2 seconds.  As this video shows, mobile phones can be a practical, portable source of wireless power for a wide range of applications.

Powercast’s TX91501 Powercaster transmitter was selected by EDN for the Hot 100 Products of 2010. This transmitter sends both power and data for remote powering/charging in conjunction with Powercast’s P1110 or P2110 Powerharvester receivers.

Broadcasted RF energy creates a predictable, controllable power source to provide power-over-distance and one-to-many charging.  Unlike potentially unreliable or intermittent solar, heat or vibration micro-power energy sources, the TX91501 transmitter sends power to enable wireless devices to charge and operate completely untethered from the power source, and power can be sent on-demand, scheduled, or continuously.  End-devices can be inherently dormant, with zero-standby power, until power is sent to operate the device, or batteries can be trickle-charged remotely.  The operating distance for wireless power transfer (wireless charging) from the TX91501 transmitter to a device with the P2110 Powerharvester Receiver is about 40 feet with a reasonable size receiving antenna.

EDN Hot 100 Products for 2010

The Economist recently released a special report on the benefits of using wireless sensors for monitoring of critical infrastructure - buildings, bridges, and tunnels.

Read the article here.

Powercast, with the support of Infinite Power Solutions, has released the Lifetime Power® Energy Harvesting Development Kit for Battery Charging. This kit provides long-range, wireless trickle charging of battery-based systems for low-power applications. The kit features the THINERGY® Micro-Energy Cell from Infinite Power Solutions (IPS), and also supports traditional rechargeable batteries including Lithium Ion, Alkaline, and Ni-MH, as well as other solid-state/thin-film batteries.

Components of the kit include:

• 915MHz, 3 watt Power+Data Transmitter (TX91501-3W-ID)
• P2110 Evaluation Boards (P2110-EVB)
• 6dBi directional antenna
• 1dBi omni-directional antenna
• Battery charging board (BAT-EVAL-01)
• THINERGY® Micro-Energy Cell Evaluation Card
• Cable for connecting to THINERGY® ADP
• TI eZ430-RF2500 wireless development tool

The components in the kit enable wireless battery charging at a distance of 40-45 feet (13-15 meters). The charging board can directly charge a THINERGY Micro-Energy Cell or connect to the THINERGY ADP. This can be used for a number of applications including building automation, energy management and industrial monitoring. Power is provided by Powercast’s new 3W transmitter (TX91501-3W-ID), which also sends factory-set data. The P2110 Powerharvester receiver converts the RF energy from the receiving antenna and stores it into a capacitor, which is then boosted as a regulated output to pulse-charge a battery.

Product Listing | User’s Manual | Press Release

Powercast, with the development support of Microchip, has released the Lifetime Power® Energy Harvesting Development Kit for Wireless Sensors.  This kit provides wireless power for remote, battery-free wireless sensor networks (WSN).

The kit (part number P2110-EVAL-01)  includes the following items:
1 - 3W Powercaster Transmitter - 915MHz (TX91501-3W-ID)
2 - P2110 Evaluation Board (P2110-EVB)
2 - Directional, patch antennas - 915MHz
2 - Omni-directional dipole antennas - 915MHz
2 - Wireless Sensor Boards (WSN-EVAL-01)
1 - Microchip XLP 16-bit Development Board
1 - Microchip 802.15.4, 2.4GHz radio
1 - PICkit programmer/debugger

The components in the kit enable wireless and battery-free operation of the sensor nodes at a distance of 40-45 feet (13-15 meters).  Each sensor board can measure temperature, humidity, light, and an external sensor. This can be used for a number of applications including building automation, energy management and industrial monitoring.  Power is provided by Powercast’s new 3W transmitter (TX91501-3W-ID), which also sends factory-set data.  The P2110 Powerharvester receiver converts the RF energy from the receiving antenna and stores it into a capacitor, which is then boosted to operate the wireless sensor board.  The Microchip XLP 16-bit Development Board with the 802.15.4 radio is the access point.

Product Link | Press Release

USA Today and MSNBC.com have run articles recently on the potential hazards of Lithium batteries.

USA Today (August 16, 2010)
Are lithium-ion batteries the next threat to airline safety?

MSNBC.com (October 26, 2010
Hazard of lithium batteries on planes sparks debate

Eliminating batteries, or using smaller rechargeable batteries, through micro-power energy harvesting would help to reduce the number of batteries shipped or the lithium content.

Powercast released the the TX91501 Powercaster(TM) Transmitter to send power and data to remote devices for battery-charging or battery-free operation. The TX91501 uses DSSS modulator for power and ASK modulation for data, and is intended to be used in conjunction with Powerharvester Receivers. The power output is either 1W or 3W based on the product version, and the data is a transmitter ID code that can be used for activating specific end devices, location tracking, or other applications.

The TX91501 transmitter is approved by the FCC (Part 15) and Industry Canada. It can be used to broadcast RF energy for both power and data in numerous energy-harvesting applications such as environmental monitoring, building automation, energy management and industrial monitoring.

Broadcasted RF energy creates a perpetual power source, unlike potentially unreliable solar, heat or vibration energy sources, to provide power-over-distance, one-to-many charging, and controllable wireless power (continuous, scheduled or on-demand). A wire- and battery-free power source enables zero-maintenance devices which deploy to inaccessible locations, and embeds within sealed devices for use in wet or harsh environments.

Product Information
Press Release

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“Powercast is the stuff of revolution…”

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Powercast recently presented about wireless power technology and RF energy harvesting to an innovation forum hosted by North River Ventures.  Following that meeting North River posted a review of Powercast’s technology.

Low Power, Free Power

Powercast provides remote, wireless power capability to micro-power devices by harvesting RF power and converting it to DC power.

Powercast is the stuff of revolution:  it spreads cloud access to hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, of small, low power (microwatt and milliwatt) M2M devices.  Placed anywhere from the simple, like a hotel room motion detector, to the complex, like a reverse osmosis filter that needs constant monitoring but that is hard, and costly, to check by hand,  embedded Powercast devices allow its “hosts” to talk to one another cheaply and efficiently.  Doing this, Powercast brings on line, as it were, a universe of productivity and information tools of unlimited application.  It makes microwatt devices edge servers.

Read more…

Randy Frank has written a good summary of the state of energy harvesting technology for Electronic Design in an article titled “Making Energy Harvesting’s Promise of Free Energy a Reality”.

With its allure of free energy and maintenance-free operation for lifetimes of 10 and even 15 years, energy harvesting (EH) is grabbing the attention of potential users in many markets. Recent EH developments have made great progress, and the pieces appear to be falling into place.

System components such as microcontrollers (MCUs), RFICs, and power-supply ICs have had to drastically reduce their power consumption and increase performance to complete a useful energy-harvesting system. In addition, software that controls the power management, data collection, and transmission processes while avoiding any unnecessary power consumption is essential.

Read more…

The article includes several graphics, including the following general diagram of a wireless sensor node.

Companies mentioned in the article include HP, EnOcean Alliance, Perpetuum, Micropelt, Powercast, Enertia Energy Systems, Tellurex, CYMBET, Infinite Power Solutions (IPS), Perpetua, CAP-XX, Microstrain, Microchip, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, and Linear Technology.