Energy Harvesting Journal: Energy Harvesting ...

5 November 2009
Country: United States
Energy Harvesting and WSN & RTLS Award Winners Announced
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This week the IDTechEx events Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) & RTLS took place in Denver, CO, USA. The event was attended by more than 290 attendees, with a brilliantly diverse spread of those through the value chain - from component suppliers to solution providers to many end users from different industries.
The gala dinner featured the famous IDTechEx awards. The judges were Dr Richard Waters of the US Military SPAWAR program, Professor Shashank Priya of VirginiaTech University, and Dr Peter Harrop, Founder and Chairman of IDTechEx.
Winners
There were four award categories, with the winners as follows:
Best technical development of an energy harvesting device: AdaptivEnergy Best technical development of a WSN/RTLS device: Intelligent InSites Best application of an energy storage device: EnOcean Best application of WSN/RTLS: Awarepoint
Best Technical Development Awards
In this category, judges were looking for the best development of a device in terms of the technical difficulty that was tackled, the potential market, and the benefits over alternative solutions.
For the energy harvesting award AdaptivEnergy won for its new Ground Transport Energy Harvester. This is AdaptivEnergy's 2nd‐generation product developed for RTLS and WSN applications in rail, truck, and automotive environments. The JTRB‐e12 ruggedized, long life design thrives in vibration and impact environments providing a robust self‐sustaining energy harvesting power solution for today's most popular standard wireless communication protocols and low power smart electronics.

Significant technical attributes of this product include:
New e12 Energy Key™ design platform provides flexibility in energy storage selection (thin film batteries or supercapacitors) 3.0V or 3.3V regulated output, with extremely low leakage electronics (<5 na) in typical usage conditions High Current (> 200ma burst capability) option available for supplying energy for low power smart electronics and wireless platforms such as 802.11 WiFi, 802.15.4 Zigbee, and comparable applications > 1 mW average effective power in transit when installed on auto, tractor trailer, and train assets Proven to eliminate batteries in many installations and significantly prolong battery life in other higher power asset tracking applications.
For the WSN/RTLS award in this category Intelligent InSites won for its impressive software platform. The InSites Platform breaks new ground by providing healthcare organizations with a single system capable of locating patients, staff, equipment, and inventory via information derived through a variety of real-time locating (RTLS) technologies. The information is then leveraged to streamline and automate patient flow, asset management, and inventory management activities, resulting in increased productivity and efficient deployment of resources. So far most software solutions are dedicated to a certain hardware type, but this is RTLS technology agnostic.

The platform serves as the core of the enterprise visibility strategy for Intelligent InSites' healthcare clients by enabling the seamless integration of real-time location data with their existing IT systems, communication systems, building systems, and mobile devices. The platform also allows customers and integrators to customize and enhance the system to suit their unique requirements and environment.
Best Application Awards
In this category, judges were looking for companies that have demonstrated commercial success with these technologies.
EnOcean won this award for its application of energy harvesters for wireless controls and sensors. For over eight years, EnOcean has been supplying components for pioneering wireless sensor technology that harvest their energy from the immediate environment - a keystroke, a miniature solar cell or even the temperature difference between a radiator and a wall. Already over 350 different interoperable products have been developed by over 100 manufacturers based on this technology and in the building automation sector alone, more than 100,000 buildings worldwide have been fitted with EnOcean technology.

EnOcean specifically won the award for its power-saving RF transmitter module STM 110C (315 MHz), which was launched in April 2008, which enables an easy implementation of wireless and maintenance-free sensors:
Fully functional Energy Harvesting Radio Sensor Module Contains Radio, Energy Storage, Energy Management and Software Generic approach offers a wide range of applications Configurable by external contacts (no programming required) Superior ultra-low energy saving technical data, e.g. 80 nA timer circuit - allows reliable operation in total darkness for many days
Awarepoint won this award for is deployment of RTLS/WSN at Jackson Health Systems. Awarepoint is currently tracking 12,000 medical equipment assets throughout the Jackson Health System's nearly 4,459,000 million square foot, multi-building campus (also encompassing 91 floors and 17 buildings). With Jackson Health System's large network coverage requirement, fast and minimally invasive installation was imperative to success. Requiring no hard wiring, Awarepoint's "plug and track" network is a fully managed service, including hardware, software, remote monitoring and maintenance. With its patented wireless sensor network (WSN) architecture, Awarepoint completed the entire installation in less than 6 weeks.

Since the wireless sensor network installation, Jackson Health System has enjoyed the following benefits:
Increased Staff Productivity Increased Equipment Utilization Beyond Asset Tracking - Temperature Monitoring
.
Congratulations to the winners. We invite others to apply for our future award ceremonies at next year's events. The next events will be:
Energy Harvesting & Storage Europe WSN & RTLS Europe: Munich. Germany, Q2 2010
Energy Harvesting & Storage USA WSN & RTLS USA: Boston, USA, November 2010
For more information on the Energy Harvesting & Storage/WSN & RTLS series of events, please contact Cara Van Heest atc.vanheest@idtechex.com.
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Article byRaghu Das
Raghu Das is the CEO of IDTechEx. He has authored many reports on the topic and conducts global consulting projects.
Telephone: + 1 617 577 7890
Email:r.das@IDTechEx.com
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