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Advances in technology across industry

Energy harvesting for automotive applications

Energy harvesters do not necessarily make sense in all potential applications but they are well fitted to niche markets where battery replacement is not an option. Continuous operation of sensors or operation in inaccessible environments makes it cost intensive or even impossible to replace drained batteries.

IMEC is developing micro-machined energy harvesters in combination with an energy storage component. Their autonomy will allow such wireless sensors to operate for an almost indefinite time without worries of battery charging or connection to a power grid.

A micro-sized piezoelectric transducer has so far shown the best result at IMEC. It consists of a cantilever with one or several piezoelectric layers sandwiched between metallic electrodes forming a capacitor. At the tip of the cantilever, a seismic mass captures the vibrations of the machine to which the harvester is attached.

The resulting harvester delivers energy that has constantly been improving in the past few years of development. At the current level of output power, IMEC’s harvesters are already powerful enough and are harvesting energy in meaningful frequencies in order to drive simple wireless sensors that intermittently transfer sensor readings to a master, which is the case in tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) being developed at IMEC. Visit: www.imec.be

Norwegian technology saving soldiers’ lives

What at first glance looks like a road grader is actually a sophisticated piece of equipment that is saving the lives of US soldiers in Afghanistan by detecting roadside bombs and land mines.

When Egil Eide, CEO of 3d-Radar, and associate professor II at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), wrote his PhD dissertation at NTNU on the radar a decade ago, there was almost immediate international interest in the technology, he says.

In addition to detecting land mines, the radar can also be used for archaeological excavations, road work or to find pipelines. The company was first spun off from NTNU in 2001, and the marketplace for the technology is rapidly expanding. Visit: www.3d-radar.com

Flagship programme for graphene

Acoordination action on graphene will be funded by the European Commission to develop plans for a 10-year, €1 billion FET flagship. Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, may be the most amazing and versatile substance available to mankind. Stronger than diamond, yet lightweight and flexible, graphene enables electrons to flow much faster than silicon. It is also a transparent conductor, combining electrical and optical functionalities in an exceptional way.

Graphene can trigger a smart and sustainable carbon revolution, with profound impact in information and communication technology (ICT) and everyday life. Its unique properties will spawn innovation on an unprecedented scale and scope for high-speed, transparent and flexible consumer electronics; novel information processing devices; biosensors; supercapacitors as alternatives to batteries; mechanical components; lightweight composites for cars and planes.

The groundbreaking experiments on graphene in 2004 by European scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Their work has sparked a scientific explosion. Huge amounts of human resources and capital are being invested into graphene research and applications in the US, Japan, Korea, Singapore and elsewhere. The first products are expected to enter the market by 2014, according to estimates by Samsung.

The research effort of individual European research groups pioneered graphene science and technology, but a coordinated European level approach is needed to secure a major role for EU in this ongoing technological revolution. Visit: www.graphene-flagship.eu