Author: Aldo Romani (IUNET – University of Bologna), Cristina Rusu (RISE), Michael Hayes (Tyndall), Marco Galiazzo (Applied Materials), Mika Penttilä & Leena Ryynänen (Nokian Tyres), Tariqul Islam & Jyothi Pudota (DTT), Ksenia Avetisova (Tietoevry)
A joint effort of many consortium partners led to the scientific publication ”The ENERGY ECS Project: Smart and Secure Energy Solutions for Future Mobility”, which was presented in July 2023 in Modena, Italy, at the 7th AEIT International Conference of Electrical and Electronic Technologies for Automotive (AEIT Automotive 2023). The conference represents a reference for the technical community of the automotive industry to present and discuss the most recent results of scientific and technological research in the field, especially new applications and new trends. The relevance of ECSEL and KDT platforms in the field was highlighted with a dedicated special session in the conference program.
The publication showcased many project Use Cases, and stressed out the associated technical challenges.
UC2A aims to extend the battery life of retofitted WSN (wireless sensor netowrkd) modules in dry containers to track the intermodal transportation journey of dry containers managed by partner NetFeasa (IoTPASS platform). To this end partner Tyndall developed a battery life simulation model. The tool, acting as system integration aid, predicts the minimum size of PV panel (supplied by partner CSEM) as well as the primary and re-chargeable (secondary) batteries required to make the system work autonomously. The tool can also act as a development aid in giving step by step energy generation and consumption of the IoT tracking device throughout the journey, which enables a node designer to identify power hungry steps and explore opportunities to reduce them for example via contextual sensing (i.e. knowing dynamically when to sense, process and transceive to meet the application need). Finally it can also be used to optimize the size of the PV panels and storage devices or capturing energy for immediate use or store for later journey steps to minimize battery drain/assure autonomy.
Fig. 1 A) IoTPASS Power Management Tool GUI B) Graphical GUI describing the power consumption and power generation
Fig. 2 Cumulative Energy Estimation for different PV panel size under Static Load Average PV Condition B) Context Aware Load Average PV Condition
UC5 aims to develop the energy harvesting and needed electronics to power up the Nokian Tyres IntuituTM sensor system. The tire sensor needs to help the vehicle understand what is happening
between the tire and the ground surface. We see tire mounted sensors as a key component on data fusion for autonomous vehicles. Autonomous driving requires a continuous data collection meaning that current battery-based solutions aren’t sufficient anymore. Increasing the lifetime of sensor’s battery and even its replacement by energy harvesting is a sustainable solution for smart tires. Kinetic/strain energy harvester (Figure 3a,b) and its wireless characterisation electronics (figure3) is successfully developed allowing
to cold startup and power the sensor-node with its wireless transmission. Power management electronics allows to replace batteries and to transfer power from the energy trasnducers to the sensor.
Fig. 3 Kinetic/strain energy harvester developments: (a) FEM simulation of tire deformation and harvester output power; (b) flexible energy harvester; (c) harvester characterisation electronics and BLE circuit.