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

Lightricity已开发出世界领先的高效室内光伏(PV)技术，能够为可穿戴设备和物联网(IoT)等多种小型无线设备供电。该公司目前向物联网设备开发商销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，我们开发了一系列价格实惠的便携式光模拟器(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。目前LightBox的销售受到其准确性和相对于任何经过验证的测量方法缺乏确认性能的限制。在相对明亮的室内照明场景中，精确度足以确定性能，但不足以准确量化光伏和物联网设备的批次变化性、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清晰、可验证的性能差异。当我们和其他开发人员使用超低功耗电子产品和非常低的光线时，这些都是至关重要的。此外，如果我们能够更准确地确认光伏供电的物联网设备的性能，并参考LightBox的验证特性，我们自己的物联网设备将更有市场。客户采用光源物联网设备的一个重大障碍是无法说服他们相信他们可能遇到的所有照明级别的性能。电池是一种安全的、即使是相当短期的、高维护性和不可持续的电力解决方案。我们需要充分描述和优化LightBox产品，以提高其性能。与国家物理实验室(NPL)的合作带来了独特的定制测量能力、专业知识和与标准开发的联系。该项目将帮助我们提高LightBox的准确性，并确保它与未来的国际标准保持一致。这将增加客户对该产品的信心，使其成为光伏供电的物联网设备的独特、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.