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Issue date: 22nd August 2007
Perpetuum and Texas Instruments enable sensor system manufacturers to transmit
high data loads entirely powered by vibration energy-harvesting
Perpetuum, the world leader in vibration energy-harvesting, announces its
PMG17 vibration energy-harvesting microgenerator can readily be used to
power the Texas Instruments CC2420 single chip RF transceiver and MSP430
16 bit ultra-low-power microcontroller. As a result, sensor node manufacturers
can now design battery-free sensor systems using the IEEE 802.15.4 standard
even for the most data intensive applications such as condition monitoring.
This opens up many new opportunities for proprietary protocols.
Texas Instruments’ CC2420 transceiver is designed for low-power, low-voltage
RF applications using the 802.15.4 protocol. A vibration energy-harvesting
sensor node designed around the CC2420 by Perpetuum engineers is capable
of sampling 2kbyte of vibration data and transmitting it over 100m (line-of-sight)
every 60 seconds when only 0.025g of vibration is present. At this incredibly
low level of vibration the PMG17 energy harvester produces up to 1mW, while
at 1g the output is around 50mW, enabling the node to measure and transmit
continuously. The node can be configured to measure and transmit much smaller
data sets, such as temperature, more frequently or larger data sets less
frequently, depending on the application.
“We are delighted Perpetuum has designed a practical alternative to
batteries that can be used to power our transmitters,” says Frank
Forster, Business Development Manager, Catalog DSP, MCU & Low-Power
Wireless Europe at Texas Instruments. “With an increasing industry
demand for wireless sensor systems, battery-free systems are now a reality.
They offer a reliable source of power and there are no disposal and maintenance
issues.”
“Our microgenerators and the Texas Instruments CC2420 enable wireless
sensing nodes to monitor plant, process and machinery, remotely, wirelessly
and without any batteries,” says John Parker, Senior Engineer, Perpetuum.
“Operators can use the data about the condition of plant equipment
for improved asset management, and for preventative maintenance, allowing
them to significantly reduce down-time and save thousands of pounds.”
An application note to aid engineers designing self-powered wireless condition
monitoring systems is available for download from the Perpetuum website,
www.perpetuum.com.
For further information contact:
Perpetuum Ltd., Epsilon House, Southampton Science Park, Southampton
SO16 7NS.
Tel : +44 (0)23 8076 5888. email :
info@perpetuum.co.uk
http://www.perpetuum.co.uk/
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