Site-dependency energy harvesting - the difficulty of Zero-Power IoT

In the previous article about "Reverse engineering - Energy harvesting under the microscope" I took a look under the hood of an energy harvesting module for IoT applications.

But what do you get out of the best hardware, when the power source is too weak? Each country has their own regulation of the allowed signal strength as the radiation power in milliwatts.

By harvesting energy from e.g. a WiFi signal, IEEE 802.11 b, the radiation power is in between 100 and 4000 mW, where India tops the list of countries across the world.

As you see in the world map, the allowed signal strength in the United States is ten times higher than in Central Europe. As a consequence the development of WiFi energy harvesting systems seems to be more attractive for the US market than for European countries. Ten times less energy does not mean a tenth of application power. It means ten times less transmissions per hour.

Apart from WiFi there are other wireless signal standards or hybrid solutions to harvest energy. Selecting the best energy source like for example solar radiation, temperature differences or noise pollution is the challenge. The choice is depending on the operational location.

That is why I advise the development of modular and combinable HAT (hardware attached on top) systems for your?Zero-Power IoT application, unless you have a niche for your product.

If you need support with the development of your energy harvesting system or any other electronic application, feel free to get in touch?with me.