SBIR Phase II: Ambient energy harvesting technology for IoT wireless sensor applications

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be the development of unique portable energy harvesting and storage technology that can enable ubiquitous deployment of small wireless sensor modules throughout the nation's industrial, civil, agricultural, and institutional infrastructure. The portable power technology developed in this project will enable such devices to be deployed without the need for electrical cables or batteries. This will remove the single biggest technology barrier to growth of the industrial Internet of Things (IoT), namely the difficulty of installing and maintaining large numbers of wireless sensors in locations that need them. Wireless IoT systems, such as for safety monitoring, performance optimization, or predictive maintenance, can significantly increase productivity, efficiency, safety, and cost reduction of operations. This project's developments in electromechanical design, circuit design, and integrated manufacturing will advance the art of ambient energy harvesting technology. These perpetual energy products will help the United States take global leadership in IoT, providing significant economic benefit to the companies that use this technology for their IoT applications. Successful deployment of IoT directly translates into economic growth, increased worker safety, improved environment, and job creation.The proposed project will develop and manufacture small, inexpensive energy harvesters with built in energy storage for wireless IoT applications. These energy harvesting units will extract energy from ambient sources, such as vibrations, and will provide electrical power for small autonomous IoT devices. The units will feature on-board energy storage, providing power even if the ambient energy source is intermittent or if surge power is temporarily needed. The first units will be optimized for efficiently extracting electrical power from small amplitude vibrations at low frequencies, and can be manufactured at low cost. The same underlying technology can be used to extract energy from other sources, such as air/water flow, mechanical movement, or thermal gradients. The project leverages unique circuit designs and manufacturing processes that enable this unit to be (1) easily integrated into existing electronic systems, (2) efficient in extracting electrical power from low energy sources, and (3) manufacturable at an affordable, market-driven cost. This will result in the development of an extensive product line of small, portable inexhaustible energy sources for wireless IoT.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.