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Tiny ARM-Based Sensor System Makes Battery Replacement Obsolete
An anonymous reader writes "University of Michigan researchers have crammed an ARM Cortex microcontroller, a thin-film battery, and a solar cell into a package that is only 9 cubic millimeters in volume. The system is able to run perpetually by periodically recharging the on-board battery with a solar cell (neglecting physical wear-out of the system)."
I think this is the first time I've ever actually seen a legitimate claim of a device drawing less power than it can charge from ambient sources.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
And lack of sunlight....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If we ignore wear-out, battery replacement is obsolete.
Uh hum.
"Neglecting physical wear" when it comes to batteries is like saying "This car runs forever (neglecting its need for fuel)"
I didn't think the ability to charge batteries was ever the problem - it's the fact that the innards of the batteries themselves slowly degrade and eventually become unusable
We get nearer ambient computing where maybe we buy granular stuff by the pound and spread it on things.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
Forget that.
Imagine a Beowulf Swarm of these.
Just like my 1987 calculator? Am I missing something here?
People say my sig is the best thing about me.
The Day Star burns us, we dont care that it can recharge our toys. We're still not going outside.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This device is a charging device for low power devices. Someone doesn't seem to have read the article. There are plenty of ordinary devices that can be powered by solar panels. I got a neat little one for Christmas. It charges my phone and iPod. The novelty in this device is that it is so good at running small devices that can be left alone for a long time - not that it will make your phone or flashlight into sealed devices.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I saw some vibration-powered wearable devices that made similar claims, as long as you moved as often as your average sedentary person across an average week. Doesn't seem particularly new...
For something that small, a capacitor would be better than a battery. Better utilization of short peak light to stored energy. Short term high current draw (e.g. for a transmitter). Much (much) longer life than a rechargeable battery. It could run for hundreds of years.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Nowhere in TFA does it mention exactly what this "sensor" actually SENSES. It apparently wakes from sleep mode occasionally to "make measurements", but no specifics are given.
Consisting of only a CPU, battery, and solar cell, the only things it COULD actually measure would be ambient light levels or the battery charge state.
Without the ability to actually measure something external to itself, and just as importantly, output the results of those measurements somehow, this device seems like it's only function is to generate press releases....
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then you toss away the tiny thing
Right. So it goes from some interior space where light is good, but not daylight, to some landfill where it is exposed to the Sun. What was 'worn out' now has an abundance of photons and reactivates. It's not happy about ending up in Fresh Kills with the other 500,000 discarded and reanimated sensors. Eventually they unify into a vast, angry landfill monster and wade across the water to crush New York.
Please do not contribute to garbage self-awareness.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
That's called an automatic movement. They're quite common.
Less common is a watch like this one, which is a quartz analog watch powered by five independent, shock-dampened micro-sized motors. It does chrono, world time, and alarms. Every night it syncs with the FM radio signal from the atomic clock in Fort Collins, CO (or at least it tries to, several times over several hours) so it always has the correct time. AND the entire face of the watch is a solar panel, which it uses to charge a battery, allowing it to essentially run forever (much like the device in this story).
Breakfast served all day!
looks like this could take Smart Dust closer to viability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_dust
http://www.object404.com
Very cool device, but battery life won't be "infinite" or anything close. The article doesn't specify battery chemistry, but it does say that the battery will last "a few years"... and I don't imagine they're replaceable. This is not to knock - this is a great achievement! Mainstream micro-controller that can power itself in a hassle-free manner? Awesome =]
maybe
The system is able to run perpetually by periodically recharging the on-board battery with a solar cell (neglecting physical wear-out of the system)."
Yeah that's cute. Able to run perpetually neglecting physical wear out of the system. And I have invented a perpetual motion machine, neglecting friction, air resistance and gravity.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'd like to have my pacemaker charged by solar power. The pacemaker is close enough to the skin that if you put a solar panel on it my guess is that in direct sunlight you could get enough energy in to extend battery life significantly.
While we're on the subject of timepieces powered by their environment, may I present the Atmos Clock, which is powered solely by the small changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure that occur naturally every day. It was designed by Jean-Léon Reutter in 1928, and over half a million have been sold to date.
Just having a plain uC alone doesn't do much. You'll also want some external circuitry to acutally make measurements (even if it's just some filter for a built-in ADC), communicate with the outside world (hm, could this thing use something similar to RFID when communicating?) and/or change things about the outside world (with a DAC or some output pins).
I think we may be missing the really amazing part of this; that penny is huge!
Get a web developer
It costs an ARM, if not a leg.
...I for one welcome our new ARM-based overlords.