Seminar | December 2 | 12:30-2 p.m. | Zoom
Neal Jackson
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS)
With enough power, any problem becomes tractable. Since the inception of wireless sensor networks, researchers have continuously searched for ways to do more with less. Integrated circuits and MEMS sensors have continued to shrink in size, cost, and active and quiescent power. However, the energy density of non-rechargeable batteries and the efficiency of energy harvesting have plateaued, constraining the power and energy available to wireless sensors. Batteryless sensors reject non-rechargeable batteries (and their finite lifetimes) and subsist entirely on harvested energy from the environment. While these devices have indeterminate lifetimes, their operation is intrinsically tied to their energy income, which may be inconsistent and unpredictable.
Many researchers in the wireless sensor community are convinced that batteryless sensors are the future. However, industry largely continues to build battery-powered sensors. This represents a rift in design understanding between those who value reliability and those who consider it a secondary concern to lifetime. In this talk, I will explore the design space of wireless sensors in the context of the requirements of real applications and the myriad of combinations of energy harvesting, rechargeable, and non-rechargeable energy storage. This talk takes a deep dive into the effect of component selection and sizing on energy harvesting efficacy, particularly of energy storage capacity.
Shirley Salanio, shirley@eecs.berkeley.edu, 510-643-8347