2010 Energy Harvesting Pavilion

11:45 AM - 12:15 PM

Harvesting Useful Vibrations on Rail Cars
Kevin Marzano, Director of Business Development, Perpetuum
Using a vibration energy harvester to power a wheel axle bearing monitoring device. The vibration harvester will power a device that collects temperature and vibration data that will be used for predictive failure. The temperature and vibration data will correlate to wear for the axle bearings and will give prior notice to the noticeable "rumble" noise from bearing wear.

12:30 PM - 1:00 PM

Epson Toyocom's Current and Future Sensor Technologies
Veasna Chhun, Product Marketing Engineer, Timing Devices Business Unit, Epson Toyocom Corporation
Epson Toyocom Corporation is a global leader in crystal timing devices for consumer and industrial electronic products. Utilizing our innovative hybrid quartz microfabrication technology, QMEMS, we are able to offer technologically advanced products for sensing applications as well. This session will focus on Epson Toyocom’s miniature, low noise and high performance gyro sensors, analog 6-axis accelerometer and gyro sensor modules, and pressure sensors along with their applications in everyday devices.

1:15 PM - 1:45 PM

Selection and Design of Energy Harvesters for Wireless Sensing Applications
Steve Arms, President and CEO, MicroStrain
This session will focus on the key aspects of energy harvester selection and design as well as the energy storage elements to meet the customer's specific needs. The broad range of applications demand that a wide range of sensors and sampling rates be supported. The sensing requirements and sensor selections also impact on the amount of energy consumption, which, in turn, impacts on the selection of energy harvester. The operational environments vary widely as well, presenting unique and challenging design opportunities for developers. An overview of various strategies for selecting and designing energy harvesters will be provided, including systems that scavenge energies from strain, vibration, thermal gradients, ambient light, and electromagnetic fields.

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Selecting the Proper Sensor for Measuring Motion
Dave Lally, Vice President of Engineering, PCB Piezotronics
This session will examine the many different types of accelerometers that are available and what makes them an excellent choice for providing vibration measurements. The sensor selection process is critical to identifying those accelerometers with the performance characteristics that are best suited for specific applications. No single sensor can meet every motion measurement requirement and without the proper transducer it is easy to generate “bad data” resulting in faulty measurements. 

2:45 PM- 3:15 PM

3:30 PM- 4:00 PM

Optimal Energy Harvesting via Energy Processing
Blair Wilson, VP Sales, Cymbet Corporation
New advanced Energy Harvesting techniques that optimize the efficiency of energy conversion, energy storage and system power management have been introduced using Energy Processing devices.  These Energy Processors contain complex power tracking algorithms, but are easy to use drop-in solutions that can be used universally with all different  types of EH transducers.

11:30 AM- 12:00 PM

1:00 PM - 1:30 PM

Monitoring the World through WiFi enabled Sensors
Mitch Dale, VP of Business Development and Technical Support, Roving Networks               
The availability of ultra-low power, low cost, compact WiFi modules has enabled a new class of wireless sensors.   Free of the confines proprietary networks and gateways,  a single sensor can be located anywhere in the world and provide data to your computer or smart phone.  These sensors ride upon the rapidly expanding, standard WiFi infrastructure.   We will discuss several WiFi sensor architectures and solutions begin deployed today.  We will also compare and contrast other wireless technologies.