Abstract
OBJECTIVES OF THE REPORT
This report focuses on MEMS energy harvesting devices from both technology and
market points of view.
Special attention has been given to the market drivers for adopting MeMs
energy harvesting devices in different market segments, factoring the progress
of competing technologies and cost constraints.
It appears that the numerous opportunities for energy harvesting devices must
be analyzed carefully, taking into account all aspects of the final
application from power consumption profiles to lifetime and size constraints.
Applications screened cover automotive, medical, industrial machine
monitoring and process control, home automation and defense.
The main developments in MEMs energy harvesting devices are described and
compared to fuel cells and micro-batteries. The report also describes the
challenges facing the current players and the current market trends and
business models.
MAIN CHALLENGES
Within an environmentally conscious world, MEMS Energy harvesting devices
promise in principle a cleaner and almost perpetual solution to powering small
systems avoiding the use and waste of polluting batteries.
Ever optimistic market projections are predicting billions of dollars in
revenue for ubiquitous sensor networks in the next five to ten years and
derive from these numbers large energy harvesting sales and volumes.
And indeed, MeMs energy harvesting devices have been a hot topic in MeMs r&D
for some years with spectacular developments driven by DARPA programs within
the Hi-MEMS cyborg insects.
The reality is that beyond the technological buzz, commercial applications are
slowly starting to get to market for industrial applications and home
automation appliances. This is driving the first volumes for energy
harvesting applications, but not necessarily at the micro scale. hot market
segments in 2007 and 2008 such as tire pressure monitoring systems where
batteries are currently the dominant solution have driven enormous efforts but
the market dynamics have not made it possible to accept a premium price for
alternative solutions.
We have focused our efforts in this report into a fine analysis of the market
drivers for using MEMS energy harvesting devices, in comparison to micro
batteries, micro fuel cells, or even solar cells. Different application fields
from medical to home automation, industrial process control, machine
monitoring or transportations have been analyzed in this report.
The challenges facing this technology were examined in a broad view, from a
technology but also from a whole product point of view. There are needs for
better power density but also for less power consuming electronics and
wireless communications.
MARKET METRICS
Market acceptance of MEMS energy harvesting devices is a function of several
parameters that are studied in the report.
These parameters include, but are not limited to: size, cost, amount of power
generated versus amount of power needed by the system and projected lifetime
for the energy harvesting device compared to the system parts lifetime.
A major factor to be taken into account is whether there is enough power
harvested for a particular application from a particular environment, and
whether the scavenged power needs to be stored. As piezoelectric MeMs energy
harvesting devices can currently power sensor nodes requiring 60 uW according
to the latest developments, a companion energy storage device would be
necessary for most applications.
Commercial success will come from a full understanding of all aspects of the
system to be powered and of the data receiver nodes.
Challenges include ultra low power electronics and wireless data transmissions
rates and standards.
REPORT HIGLIGHT
- 21 applications evaluated
- Global overview across 8 fields : automotive, industrial, semiconductor
manufacturing, building & home automation, environment monitoring, military
& aerospace, medical, consumer electronics
- 14 company profiles
- + 170 pages
- Analysis of piezoelectric, capacitive, electromagnetic vibration energy
harvesting and thin film thermal energy harvesting
- Review of the lastest developments in energy storage devices
(microbatteries...), wireless communication technologies and wireless
sensor networks
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