Thoughts on future research Jan Beutel

Meso-scale energy scavenging Renewable energy sources (e.g. solar) Energy conversion/storage (e.g. supercap, battery) Energy usage based on user demand Software controlled system components Target very high efficiencies (system-wide) Electricity currently has a bright energy future Potential for energy scavenging to be integrated into every/many devices

Meso-scale energy scavenging Solar is already widely used and successful uW class (1 cell), e.g. wristwatches, calculators mW class (few cells) is still underdeveloped W & kW class (panel based, on- and off-grid), e.g. camping/boats, grid connected

Meso-scale energy scavenging State of “few watts” energy scavenging – A few initial trials in WSN community (papers) -> POC – Accurate models are inexistent – Dimensioning and system design largely unclear – Storage options largely unexplored – Systems are always designed in two separate phases solar controller and energy consumers

Meso-scale energy scavenging Not just an electronic/hw problem Storage or usage? Load balancing? Accurate models? Methods & tools for analysis System design aspects Control of power/tasks Limits

Multi-rate low-power wireless Example: IEEE (Wi-Fi) for WSNs – Gainspan SOC, 2x ARM7, WLAN, LP-modes

Multi-rate low-power wireless Industry focuses on ever more bandwidth – e.g. MIMO systems (IIS/ISI ETH Zurich)

Multi-rate low-power wireless SoCs are finally here Every (consumer) device has multiple interfaces Our niche would be on efficiency, adaptivity Large dynamic range from bits/minute to MBytes/sec Trade-off of many different parameters (latency, protocol features, redundancy) Relatively easy to prototype on multi-radio systems Related work: Bahl (wakeup radio), industry, communication community …