Development of an integrated and low-cost indoor light simulator for the characterisation of photovoltaic components and autonomous IoT systems

Lightricity开发了世界领先的高效室内光伏(PV)技术，能够为各种小型无线设备(如可穿戴设备和物联网)供电，从而避免了电池电源的可持续性和维护成本。该公司目前向物联网设备开发商销售光伏组件技术，并向系统集成商和物联网解决方案提供商提供光伏供电的物联网设备。为了在设备可能经历的各种照明条件下测试我们的产品，从而展示与电池供电设备相比的性能潜力，我们开发了一系列价格合理的便携式光模拟器(LightBox)。除了帮助满足我们的内部需求，LightBox目前还出售给研究人员和光伏设备开发商。我们最新的LightBox产品(LightBox)成本非常低(低于GB 100)，完全集成、便携和校准版本，不需要昂贵和笨重的源表与其接口。其目标是以一种适合教育、商业物联网设备开发、设备性能评估甚至对精度和分辨率要求较低但成本至关重要的业余爱好者的更大市场的格式，使测试功能更加广泛和负担得起。虽然它是功能性的，但它还需要改进，以满足行业标准并达到完全的市场接受度。NPL和ASTUTE已通过A4i帮助提供测量和分析支持，以解决与表征和优化性能以及允许最低成本制造的设计选择相关的测量挑战。它们带来了独特的专业知识和定制设备，以其他方式在商业上无法获得，并与室内光伏技术的标准开发建立了强有力的联系。这将增加客户对LightBox产品的信心，并支持我们自己的光伏组件和光伏供电的物联网设备产品的销售。

Lightricity has developed world leading efficiency indoor photovoltaic (PV) technology capable of powering a multitude of small wireless devices e.g. for wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) thus avoiding the sustainability and maintenance costs of battery power. The company currently sells its PV component technology to IoT device developers and also offers PV-powered IoT devices to systems integrators and IoT solution providers.In order to test our products in the full range of lighting conditions likely to be experienced by the devices and therefore demonstrate performance potential vs battery-powered devices, we developed a family of affordable, portable light simulators (LightBox). As well as helping address our internal needs, the LightBox is currently sold to researchers and PV-powered device developers.Our latest LightBox product (LightBox+) is a very low cost (under £100), fully integrated, portable and calibrated version that does not require an expensive and bulky source-meter to be interfaced with it. The objective is to make test capability much more widely available and affordable in a format that suits the much bigger market in education, commercial IoT device development, device performance evaluation and even hobbyists where accuracy and resolution demands are lower but costs are critical. Although it is functional, it needs to be improved to meet industry standards and reach full market acceptance.NPL and ASTUTE have been engaged through A4i to help with measurement and analysis support to solve measurement challenges relating to characterising and optimising performance and allowing choices for design for lowest cost manufacturing. They bring unique expertise and custom equipment not otherwise available commercially and a strong linkage to standards development for indoor PV technologies. This will increase customer confidence in the LightBox+ product and also underpin sales of our own PV component and PV-powered IoT device products.