Introduction

The powering of remote and wireless sensors is widely cited as a critical barrier limiting the uptake of remotely located sensors and wireless sensor networks. Many of the advantages of wireless sensor networking disappear if individual nodes require an external power source. 

Ongoing power management developments enable electronic circuits to operate longer for a given power supply however this has its limitations and power harvesting/scavenging is a complementary approach. Energy harvesting is a means of powering wireless sensor nodes by scavenging many low grade ambient energy sources such as environmental vibrations, human power, thermal sources, wind energy and their conversion into useable electrical energy. Energy harvesting devices are attractive as replacements for batteries in low power wireless electronic devices.

Objectives

The objectives of this knowledge exchange and partnering event are:

• Educate the technology users about currently available energy harvesting products, their applications and their limitations.
• Highlight emerging energy harvesting approaches and coming improvements to the state of the art.
• Provide a forum for the networking of the technology users and developers for the development of new collaborations, applications or sales opportunities.
• Stimulate discussion of the barriers to uptake of the technology and the opportunities to address these.
• To inform funding bodies (e.g. EPSRC and TSB) of the areas requiring further support.

Who should attend

• Companies wishing to use energy harvesting technology – either end users or supply chain participants.
• Academic groups working on EH devices or evaluating them for use in wireless sensing applications.
• Companies developing and/or selling EH devices.
• Technology consultancies and other companies in the wireless sensing space.
• Research Councils and Technology Strategy Board representatives who may formulate R&D programmes.
• Investors wishing to understand the potential and limitations.