Carriers, Storage, & Transformation

Electrical Flow

Micropower Materials Development for Wireless Sensor Networks

Dan Steingart^a1, Shad Roundy^a2, Paul K. Wright^a1 and James W. Evans^a1

^a1 University of California–Berkeley, USA

^a2 LV Sensors, Inc., USA

Subcentimeter wireless computers capable of interfacing physically with their environment and communicating with each other have progressed from concept to commercial reality in the past decade. Wireless sensor nodes are an exciting technology, as they provide a backbone to measure almost any quantity in a spatially disperse way, allowing time-synchronized correlations over meters or miles. Before these devices can be deployed to monitor and protect environments (such as grid power distribution systems, buildings, factories, or even the human body) for long periods of time, they need a power source. Environmental generation looks to be a promising method.

Dan Steingart can be reached at 316 Hearst Mining Memorial Bldg., MS 1760, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; and e-mail dan.steingart@berkeley.edu.

Steingart is a lecturer and post-doctoral researcher at University of California at Berkeley, as well as co-founder and CTO of Wireless Industrial Technologies. He received his PhD degree in materials science and engineering in 2006 from UC Berkeley. Steingart's research interests include power generation, storage, and management for individual sensor nodes, as well as tailoring groups of nodes for industrial and environmental monitoring. He also is interested in minimal manufacturing through additive printing techniques.

Shad Roundy can be reached at LV Sensors, Inc., Hollis Business Center, 1480 64th St., Suite 175, Emeryville, CA 94608, USA; tel. 510–903–3506, fax 510–903–3526, and e-mail sroundy@lvsensors.com.

Roundy is an architect of energy harvesting for LV Sensors. He received his PhD degree in mechanical engineering from University of California at Berkeley in 2003. Prior to his current position, Roundy was a lecturer at the Australian National University. His research interests include energy harvesting, smart materials, and MEMS. He has a particular interest in employing these technologies to applications that result in improved large-scale energy effciency and conservation.

Paul Wright can be reached at 5133 Etcheverry Hall, MS 1740, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720–1740, USA; tel. 510–642–2527, and e-mail pwright@me.berkeley.edu.

Wright assumed the position of chief scientist for the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at University of California at Berkeley in January 2006 and also is a professor in the mechanical engineering department, where he holds the A. Martin Berlin chair. Wright attended Birmingham and Cambridge Universities prior to previous faculty positions at New York University and Carnegie Mellon University. Currently, he and his colleagues are designing and prototyping wireless systems for “demand response power management” throughout California, funded by Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program of the California Energy Commission (CEC).

James Evans can be reached at 316 Hearst Mining Memorial Bldg., MS 1760, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; tel. 510–642–3807, and e-mail evans@berkeley.edu.

Evans holds the Plato Malozemoff Endowed chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. His recent research has focused on electrochemistry, particularly as applied to materials production and energy storage. Evans has published approximately 180 papers in refereed archival journals (plus 120 other publications), has co-authored three books, and is a co-inventor on eight issued patents, including four related to batteries/fuel cells.