As offshore drilling goes into deeper depths, NewTek Sensor Solutions offers custom designs of Submersible Linear Position Sensors that offer high reliability and long-term operation in corrosive and high-pressure subsea environments. Constructed of special alloys, the Submersible Displacement Sensors can offer chemical resistance to water in depths exceeding 15,000 ft or more and with external […]
Energy Harvesting
What’s new in temperature testing for COVID-19?
When COVID-19 appeared earlier this year, the first wide-spread testing to detect if a person had the disease involved temperature. In contrast to other invasive approaches, the need for improved temperature testing prompted a few companies to investigate and then develop their own approach. Dermal Photonics Corp. solution was a wearable smart thermometer called NIRA […]
How is self-powered clothing doing?
If you’re interested in the information and convenience that a wearable product can provide, you probably do not want to worry about how it gets its energy or when recharging is required and certainly do not want to change batteries. You just want to get uninterrupted information. One company built on offering invisible wearables has […]
How can backscatter communication improve wireless sensor networks?
As an integral part of the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are projected to have rapid growth. According to the “Wireless Sensor Network Markets” report, by 2023, there will be 3.4 billion annual WSN chipset shipments worldwide up from 1 billion in 2018. If the WSNs only use batteries for their power, […]
How can solar provide power to the IoT?
At Sensors Expo 2019, Ben Lanail, Director of Business Development at Alta Devices, explains how his company’s thin-film solar voltaic cells can provide power for a variety of devices and applications, including the Internet of Things (IoT). Made from wide band gap (WBG) gallium arsenide (GaAs), the cells have very good light to electricity conversion […]
Is the energy in energy harvesting really free?
Of course. However, the conversion process to get useful electricity certainly is not. Also, several design considerations must be taken into account to ensure a system’s success. This includes thinking differently about power consumption. With all of the wireless communications applications expanding in consumer, commercial and industrial applications, the power must be achieved without connecting […]
How can the power consumption for computing be reduced for energy harvesting?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Chet Jewan, vice-president of sales and business development from Eta Compute, explains how his company’s computing technology can benefit heart rate monitoring and energy harvesting applications. The first demo, with an Eta Compute chip running at 0.476V powered by solar energy, displays Jewan’s heart rate. A second demo has sensors being […]
How can you harvest RF energy?
At Sensors Expo, Eric Biel, an engineer from Powercast Corporation, explains how radio frequency or RF energy can be used in energy harvesting applications. RF wireless power transmitted by the PowerSpot transmitter is received by two receiver sticks with LEDs. The TX91503 PowerSpot transmitter broadcasts an RF signal in the unlicensed 915 MHz industrial, scientific […]
What’s new in supercapacitors for energy harvesting?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Pierre Mars, head of the applications team at Cap-XX, a supercapacitor manufacturer from Australia, explains the supercapacitor demos in their booth. Using a 800 mF supercapacitor provides the energy to power a 2.9V near-field communication (NFC) 13.5 MHz sensor puck from Silicon Labs. With the charged supercapacitor (above 2.6V) the unit […]
What’s new in batteryless sensing?
To solve the problem of replacing batteries in ever-increasing wireless sensing applications in the Internet of Things (IoT), PsiKick has developed proprietary sensors called Smart Sense Nodes (or S2Ns) that employ ultra-low-power digital and RF circuit technologies. The S2Ns are powered by energy harvested from heat or indoor lighting that eliminates the need for a […]
