Development of an indoor light simulator for the characterisation of Photovoltaic components and autonomous IoT systems (R6 Cont.)

Lightricity开发了世界领先的高效室内光伏（PV）技术，能够为众多小型无线设备供电，例如可穿戴设备和物联网（IoT）。该公司目前向物联网设备开发商出售其独特的室内光伏组件技术，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，我们开发了一系列经济实惠的便携式光模拟器（LightBox）。除了帮助解决我们的内部需求外，LightBox目前还出售给研究人员和光伏供电设备开发人员。目前LightBox的销售受到其准确性和缺乏相对于任何经验证的测量方法的确认性能的限制。准确度足以在相对明亮的室内照明场景中确定性能，但不足以准确量化光伏和物联网设备批次的可变性，性能的长期稳定性以及在最低光照水平下技术和设备之间的性能差异。这些对于我们和其他开发人员在使用超低功耗电子器件和极低光照水平时至关重要。此外，如果我们能够更准确地确认其性能并参考LightBox的验证特征，我们自己的光伏供电物联网设备将更有市场。客户采用光动力物联网设备的一个重要障碍是能够说服他们在可能遇到的各种照明水平下的性能。电池是一种安全的电源解决方案，但使用时间较短，维护费用高，不可持续。我们需要对LightBox产品进行全面的升级和优化，以提高其性能。与国家物理实验室（NPL）合作，可以获得独特的定制测量能力、专业知识以及与标准开发的联系。该项目将帮助我们提高LightBox的准确性，并确保其符合未来的国际标准。这将增加客户对该产品的信心，使其成为光伏供电物联网设备的独特、低成本测试工具。

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). The company currently sells its unique indoor 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 have 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.Currently LightBox sales are limited by its accuracy and lack of confirmed performance relative to any validated measurement approaches. Accuracy is adequate for performance determination in relatively bright indoor lighting scenarios but is insufficient to accurately quantify PV and IoT device batch variability, longer term stability of performance and clear, verifiable differences in performances between technologies and devices at the lowest light levels. These are critical to us and other developers when working with ultra-low power electronics and very low levels of light. Additionally, our own PV-powered IoT devices would be more marketable if we can confirm their performance more accurately and by reference to verified characterisation of the LightBox. A significant barrier to customer adoption of light-powered IoT devices is being able to convince them of performance across the full range of lighting levels that they may encounter. A battery is a safe if rather short term, high maintenance and unsustainable power solution.We need to fully characterise and optimise the LightBox product in order to improve its performance. Working with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) brings access to unique custom measurement capabilities, expertise and linkage to standards development. The project will help us improve the accuracy of the LightBox and ensure that it is aligned to future international standards. This will increase customer confidence in this product and make it a unique, low-cost testing tool for PV-powered IoT devices.