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French Technology Transfer Office proposes wireless sensor technology which taps body energy in order to extend appliance use

Country of Origin: France
Reference Number: TOFR20180126001
Publication Date: 23 February 2018

Summary

The French TTO (Technology Transfer Office) is acting on behalf of an established public laboratory of the Paris region that has developed new technology to extend appliance durability of embedded and off the grid systems by energy  movements of the body.This technology is useful for healthcare devices, transportation, military or surveillance.The French public research centre is looking for partners for a technical cooperation, license or a research cooperation agreement.

Description

The French TTO (Technology Transfer Office) is acting on behalf of an established public laboratory of the leading French scientific based in the Paris region. 
For embedded systems, battery liftetime is often a critical issue and finding ways to increase it could provide major benefits. For example, improving the battery lifetime of pacemakers would postpone the chirurgical operation needed to replace the battery. While for smart clothes, tackling the battery issue would open a wide range of new applications.
When the embedded system is a wearable one, it is possible to harvest the mechanical energy due to human movements and convert it into electrical energy. But mechanical energy harvesters work efficiently only at a given mechanical frequency which is linked to their size. So when it comes to designing a miniature energy harvester, the mechanical frequency generally exceeds 100 Hz, far beyond the spread of human movements.
This technology with a micro electric mechanical systems has an internal structure designed to provide electrical power efficiently at low and wideband frequencies, making it suitable for wearable devices.

The main applications consist in improving the performances of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and improving the battery lifetime of microsystems or energy supply of autonomous wireless sensors for healthcare devices or for transportation, inventory, surveillance, military and industrial monitoring.

The French TTO is able to provide technical and legal assistance to facilitate the eventual partnership. In case of business potential, the prototype can be partially funded by the TTO.

The partner sought could be a university or a company interested in :
- a license agreement as the TTO is ready to negociate directly the patents rights for specific applications, or
- a research cooperation agreement considering the still relatively low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the actual device for some applications, or
- a technical cooperation agreement if the industrial application can benefit directly from the actual device

Advantages and Innovations

Currently no solution available on the market permits to harvest energy from human movements.
The advantages are:
-adaptable solution for retrieving energy from human movements (Hz or tens of Hz) to higher frequencies (hundreds of Hz)
-microsized system
-important power density for a microsystem operating at low frequency

Stage Of Development

Prototype available for demonstration

Stage Of Development Comment

The size of the actual prototype is 10 mm x10 mm x3 mm

Requested partner

The partner sought could be a university or a company interested in a license agreement or a research cooperation agreement or a technical cooperation agreement.
The partner could be involved in R&D projects in microelectronics in order to implement and to test this technology which is yet at a early stage.
The time to market this new technology could be still long that is the reason why the partner should have a clear industrial application in mind, and should have a strong technical background to co-develop the product with the laboratory.

Cooperation offer ist closed for requests