Ultra-low power event-driven sensing

仪器仪表行业需要能够持续监听并消耗最低功耗的远程监控设备。设备可以作为传感器进行监听，测量温度、振动或泄漏等物理参数，或者它们可以监听远程控制，以唤醒设备并触发数据通信等动作。然而，始终开启的传感会消耗持续的电力，因此，在许多情况下，这种监控是不可行的，因为它要么需要将传感器连接到电源，我们最近开发了一种集成电路，可以持续监听传感器，只使用传感器的电源，使其余电子设备完全断电。电池现在不再需要更换，因为可以实现数十年的寿命。目前，该技术具有0.5V的固定阈值，这限制了其用于产生数伏信号的传感器子集和传感器唤醒阈值为0.5V的应用子集。该项目旨在进一步开发唤醒技术，以解决更广泛的传感器应用。该项目将把阈值从0.5V降低到10mV，并根据应用在大范围内进行调谐。我们将设计一个超低功耗（小于10瓦）的可配置前置放大器与检测器电路接口，同时仍然保持所有其他电路断电，直到事件发生。该放大器的功耗水平小于小型纽扣电池的自泄漏，因此实际上不会减少传感器的寿命。本项目将设计和评估一种具有低可变触发阈值和仅受电池自泄漏限制的寿命的原型传感器设备。我们将通过传感器制造商将该技术商业化，将其模块集成到他们的设备中。

The instrumentation industry requires remote monitoring devices that continuously listen and consume minimal power. Devices may be listening as sensors, measuring physical parameters such as temperature, vibration or leakage, or they may be listening for remote control to wake up a device and trigger an action such as communicating data.However, always-on sensing draws continuous power, and therefore, in many situations, this kind of monitoring is not viable, as it would either require sensors to be wired into the mains, or frequent battery replacement.We recently developed an integrated circuit that listens to sensors continuously, using only the power from the sensor, enabling the rest of the electronics to be fully powered down. Batteries now no longer need replacing, as lifetimes of decades can be achieved. Currently the technology has a fixed threshold of 0.5V, which limits its use to a subset of sensors that produce signals of several volts and a subset of applications where a sensor wake up threshold of 0.5V is applicable.This project aims to further develop the wake up technology to address a much wider range of sensor applications. The project will reduce the threshold from 0.5V to 10mV and will also enable it to be tuned over a large range according to the application. We will design an ultra-low power (less than 10 nanowatt) configurable pre- amplifier to interface with the detector circuit, whilst still keeping all other circuitry powered off until an event occurs. This level of amplifier power consumption is smaller than the self-leakage from a small coin cell, so in practice will not reduce the lifetime of the sensor.This project will design and evaluate a prototype sensor device with low, variable trigger threshold and lifetime limited by battery self-leakage only. We will commercialise the technology through sensor manufacturers by providing modules to be incorporated within their devices.