For immediate release
November 4, 2009
Energy Harvesting and WSN & RTLS Award Winners Announced
IDTechEx, Cambridge, MA, USA
Energy Harvesting and WSN & RTLS Award Winners Announced
by Raghu Das, CEO, IDTechEx
This week the IDTechEx events Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) &
RTLS took place in Denver, CO, USA. The event was attended by more than 270 attendees, with a
brilliantly diverse spread of those through the value chain – from component suppliers to solution
providers to many end users from different industries.
The gala dinner featured the famous IDTechEx awards. The judges were Dr Richard Waters of the US
Military SPAWAR program, Professor Shashank Priya of VirginiaTech University, and Dr Peter Harrop,
Founder and Chairman of IDTechEx.
Winners
There were four award categories, with the winners as follows:
•
Best technical development of an energy harvesting device: AdaptivEnergy
•
Best technical development of a WSN/RTLS device: Intelligent Insights
•
Best application of an energy storage device: EnOcean
•
Best application of WSN/RTLS: Awarepoint
Best Technical Development Awards
In this category, judges were looking for the best development of a device in terms of the technical
difficulty that was tackled, the potential market, and the benefits over alternative solutions.
For the energy harvesting award AdaptivEnergy won for its new Ground Transport Energy Harvester. This
is AdaptivEnergy’s 2nd‐generation product developed for RTLS and WSN applications in rail, truck, and
automotive environments. The JTRB‐e12 ruggedized, long life design thrives in vibration and impact
environments providing a robust self‐sustaining energy harvesting power solution for today’s most
popular standard wireless communication protocols and low power smart electronics.
Significant technical attributes of this product include:
•
New e12 Energy Key™ design platform provides flexibility in energy storage selection (thin film
batteries or supercapacitors)
·
3.0V or 3.3V regulated output, with extremely low leakage electronics (<5 na) in typical usage
conditions
·
High Current (> 200ma burst capability) option available for supplying energy for low power smart
electronics and wireless platforms such as 802.11 WiFi, 802.15.4 Zigbee, and comparable applications
•
> 1 mW average effective power in transit when installed on auto, tractor trailer, and
train assets
·
Proven to eliminate batteries in many installations and significantly prolong battery life in other
higher power asset tracking applications.
For the WSN/RTLS award in this category Intelligent Insights won for its impressive software platform.
The InSites Platform breaks new ground by providing healthcare organizations with a single system
capable of locating patients, staff, equipment, and inventory via information derived through a variety of
real-time locating (RTLS) technologies. The information is then leveraged to streamline and automate
patient flow, asset management, and inventory management activities, resulting in increased productivity
and efficient deployment of resources. So far most software solutions are dedicated to a certain hardware
type, but this is RTLS technology agnostic.
The platform serves as the core of the enterprise visibility strategy for Intelligent InSites’ healthcare clients
by enabling the seamless integration of real-time location data with their existing IT systems,
communication systems, building systems, and mobile devices. The platform also allows customers and
integrators to customize and enhance the system to suit their unique requirements and environment.
Best Application Awards
In this category, judges were looking for companies that have demonstrated commercial success with
these technologies.
EnOcean won this award for its application of energy harvesters for wireless controls and sensors. For
over eight years, EnOcean has been supplying components for pioneering wireless sensor technology
that harvest their energy from the immediate environment - a keystroke, a miniature solar cell or even the
temperature difference between a radiator and a wall. Already over 350 different interoperable products
have been developed by over 100 manufacturers based on this technology and in the building automation
sector alone, more than 100,000 buildings worldwide have been fitted with EnOcean technology.
EnOcean specifically won the award for its power-saving RF transmitter module STM 110C (315 MHz),
which was launched in April 2008, which enables an easy implementation of wireless and maintenancefree sensors:
•
Fully functional Energy Harvesting Radio Sensor Module
•
Contains Radio, Energy Storage, Energy Management and Software
•
Generic approach offers a wide range of applications
•
Configurable by external contacts (no programming required)
•
Superior ultra-low energy saving technical data, e.g. 80 nA timer circuit – allows reliable operation in
total darkness for many days
Awarepoint won this award for is deployment of RTLS/WSN at Jackson Health Systems. Awarepoint is
currently tracking 12,000 medical equipment assets throughout the Jackson Health System’s nearly
4,459,000 million square foot, multi-building campus (also encompassing 91 floors and 17 buildings).
With Jackson Health System’s large network coverage requirement, fast and minimally invasive
installation was imperative to success. Requiring no hard wiring, Awarepoint’s “plug and track” network is
a fully managed service, including hardware, software, remote monitoring and maintenance. With its
patented wireless sensor network (WSN) architecture, Awarepoint completed the entire installation in less
than 6 weeks.
Since the wireless sensor network installation, Jackson Health System has enjoyed the following benefits:
•
Increased Staff Productivity
•
Increased Equipment Utilization
•
Beyond Asset Tracking – Temperature Monitoring
.
Congratulations to the winners. We invite others to apply for our future award ceremonies at next year’s
events. The next events will be:
Energy Harvesting & Storage Europe // WSN & RTLS Europe: Munich. Germany, Q2 2010
Energy Harvesting & Storage USA // WSN & RTLS USA: Boston, USA, November 2010