ZEPOWEL

Billions of sensors surround us in everyday life. The demand for networked devices is growing steadily - especially in the area of the Internet of Things (IoT). A vast number of networked nodes that collect, evaluate and combine data in a network is therefore already necessary today. The challenge: The energy consumption of these nodes is already enormous and will almost double in the next few years.

As part of the Towards Zero Power Electronics (ZEPOWEL) project, a technology and methodology platform was developed for the realization of highly integrated, extremely energy-efficient IoT modules and the associated vision of a highly networked society. For the optimization of networked IoT systems, innovations at the component level of radio transceivers, sensors, and energy storage devices, as well as in the combination into one system (modularization) up to the network technologies used, and a holistic methodological approach were used for this purpose to influence the energy and resource requirements sustainably. What is special about this is not only the modular technology of the system, which can be tailored to diverse IoT applications, but above all the fact that the sensor nodes of the future will also be able to supply themselves with energy autonomously.

Partially energy-autonomous sensor systems
The project results show how all these sensor systems consume extremely little power or can function completely self-sufficiently, thus helping to save carbon dioxide emissions nationwide. The application areas for such sensors range from agriculture and manufacturing industry to holistic systems for an effective and sustainable Internet of Things.

The institutes cooperating in the FMD involved in the ZEPOWEL project included Fraunhofer IAF, IISB, IPMS, ISIT, IZM, and EMFT, each of which contributed specific technologies.