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Joule-Thief energy harvesting device

AdaptivEnergy has developed a demonstration kit using Joule-Thief technology to harvest energy and power low power MSP430 microcontroller (MCU), available from Texas Instruments and RF technology to collect data, control the operation of a system or send sensed data to central collection sites. The Joule-Thief energy harvesting device is based on AdaptivEnergy's Ruggedized Laminated Piezo (RLP) technology, which enables compact energy harvesting modules to power applications such as wireless sensors. These wireless sensors could be used to gather ambient intelligence to detect and report critical conditions in factories, automobiles, office buildings, homes and other environments – all without wiring or batteries.Joule-Thief technology combines AdaptivEnergy’s stressed-biased RLP energy harvesting beam that converts vibrations or movement into usable electric energy. In addition to directly sensing movement, the new design accepts inputs from external sensing elements that can help detect strain in bridges and high-rise buildings, equipment fatigue in factories, excessive temperatures, the presence of dangerous chemicals, unsafe events in automobiles and a variety of other environmental conditions. With low power consumption in active and standby modes, the MSP430 microcontroller provides a fast wake-up time of less than a microsecond for a preferable low power/high performance solution. System-on-chip (SoC) integration of peripherals in the MSP430 microcontroller such as analogue-to-digital converters (ADC), timers, comparators and a variety of memory configurations helped AdaptivEnergy save space and board costs while enabling them to build a maintenance-free wireless sensor suitable for a wide range of ambient intelligence applications. TI’s CC2500 RF transceivers operate in the 2.4GHz range, making them suited for reliable, low-cost digital wireless applications.AdaptivEnergy offers a Joule-Thief Energy Harvesting Demonstration Kit that includes a RLP Smart Energy Beam along with collection and storage electronics in a matchbox-sized package, allowing developers to easily explore harvesting energy from vibrations. AdaptivEnergy also supplies TI’s eZ430-RF2500 microcontroller development tool, which includes all the hardware and software required to develop an entire wireless control network and comes in a USB stick form-factor with an emulator for in-system programming and debugging. Using the Joule-Thief kit and the eZ430-RF2500 microcontroller tool in conjunction, developers have a complete system for designing a low-cost, low power wireless sensor driven by environmental vibrations.