Sigfox energy harvesting module in development
Energy harvesting on Sigfox will open the way for more sustainable and lower cost Internet of Things implementations.
The development is taking place in partnership with Brazilian semiconductor solution provider HT Micron and energy harvesting semiconductor specialist Nowi to integrate their respective solutions and marks the first step towards the commercial availability of energy harvesting equipped IoT devices on Sigfox.
Key use cases are expected to be applications in smart metering, industrial sensoring, asset tracking and air quality monitoring with their low power requirements.
“The low power consumption of Sigfox solutions is particularly well suited to being powered by ambient energy harvesting,” says Chris Juliano, CCO at Nowi.
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“As many Sigfox-based applications require intermittent communication intervals, this allows for trickle charging a storage element with energy harvesting in between transmissions.”
Nowi’s energy harvesting PMIC (power management integrated circuit) is designed to extract power from ambient energy sources like light and vibration to charge a variety of energy storage elements such as a rechargeable battery or a capacitor.
Benefits include a reduction in the consumption of batteries and increased longevity in the field, thereby reducing the lifetime costs.
The first step is a development kit integrating Nowi’s PMIC solution with HT Micron’s Sigfox system-in-package, to be used for testing purposes by R&D and product development teams.
With feedback from customers and developers, the companies intend to then create a mass production module that can be used by any type of device maker.
Sigfox reports that the development should be followed soon with other solutions based on energy harvesting, with new projects already in discussion.
Among other recent developments, Sigfox has entered a partnership with positioning provider Skyhook to improve the quality and performance of tracking services on the Sigfox network.
