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Irvine, Calif.—Perpetuum (Southampton, UK) and CAP-XX Limited (Sydney, Australia) have collaborated to deliver what they say is the world's first energy harvesting-and-supercapacitor system for powering large wireless sensor networks. In a paper presented today at the Darnell Group's nanoPower Forum, CAP-XX's Pierre Mars reported on the results of field trials at the Nyhamna gas plant in Norway to evaluate the system, which uses Perpetuum's PMG17 vibration energy-harvesting microgenerator and CAP-XX's supercapacitors.
So-called "condition monitoring" solutions traditionally depend on engineering personnel for manual data collection, or the use of battery-powered remote wireless sensors. The limited lifespan of the larger battery-powered systems in harsh environments, and the cost of replacing and disposing of old batteries, work against their use. "The microgenerator and supercapacitor combination eliminates battery reliability issues and time-consuming maintenance, while enabling significant savings in operational costs and energy use," said Stephen Roberts, technical manager for Perpetuum. "Wireless system manufacturers can now easily design battery-free systems using this 'fit and forget' self-generating power source," said Mars.
In operation, the system uses the PMG17 to convert mechanical vibration into electrical energy (source provides 0.5 to 50 mW), and the CAP-XX supercapacitors for energy storage. Ultimately, the wireless sensors nodes can be powered indefinitely. The energy requirements include the power needed to transmit sensor condition data over wireless networks such as IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee) and 802.11 (WLAN). The microgenerator will support the power requirements of intermittent radio sensor systems such as Wireless HART, SP-100, and Wi-Fi in industrial applications. Generally, however, larger sensor systems require tens to hundreds of milliwatts, and the use of a supercapacitor provides the required peak power for data transmission.
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