Charging this little thing becomes a big challenge for the Internet of Things

HC Security Network news these massive things device, how to obtain the required operating power it? This may seem like a trivial matter, but it is a big challenge that the Internet of Things must solve.

Wireless charging technology has been the first to be implemented in the field of smart phones, and the next step will cover a variety of wearable devices.

What will the future IoT world look like? The imagination is infinite, but what is certain is that in the Internet of Things and the highly intelligent Internet of Things era, the number of devices is almost too large to calculate. Whether in a family home, in an office or in a factory, a network of thousands of sensors is deployed anywhere, giving people greater automation, lower costs, and better production and life. Safety and more efficient decision making improve productivity while improving people's quality of life. However, have you ever thought about how these massive IoT devices can get the power needed for work? This may seem like a trivial matter, but it is a big challenge that the Internet of Things must solve.

Massive equipment

Make small things a big challenge

The reason why the charging of IoT devices becomes an inevitable challenge lies in the number of devices.

In the future Internet of Things, almost every "thing" on the planet will receive a unique IP address, which ultimately leads to the Internet of Everything and the communication and interaction between all things. From the current point of view, these "things" have already included mobile phones, computers, and various electrical appliances in the family, such as TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, coffee machines, curtains, heating, etc., and also include intelligence. Various sensors in the car, etc.; in the factory, the "things" of the Internet of Everything are covering more and more devices that can be controlled by the power switch. Moreover, the "things" that the Internet of Things can connect to are much more than that. As communication technologies, especially wireless technologies, are becoming more and more advanced, the "intelligence" of everything in the world is becoming an unstoppable trend. In fact, although TVs, refrigerators and coffee machines have been around for many years, they have only begun to connect to the Internet in recent years. Obviously, with the continuous advancement of technology, the number of “things” to achieve interconnection in the future will be immeasurable. According to statistics, as of February 2015, the number of devices connected to the Internet was approximately 14.8 billion units; by 2020, this number will reach 50 billion.

In the vast Internet of Things, every "thing" is like a star, and each "star" has to interact with other "stars", provided that the "star" itself must be able to "glow", that is, Have energy. From this perspective, how to charge IoT devices has become an important issue that must be solved, because this is the basis for network connection, which also poses new challenges and new business opportunities for the semiconductor industry.

"Fancy" charging cool hit

The reason why the charging problem of massive IoT devices will become a big challenge is fundamentally due to the limitations of traditional charging methods. If you change your mind, the situation will be very different. In fact, breaking the usual charging methods have emerged, such as automating IoT devices, using innovative wireless charging technology and finding innovative low-power power management technologies. These "fancy" charging technologies are allowing the "stars" in the Internet of Things to radiate their own light.

Automatic charging is a beautiful looking solution. From the driving force of reality, the number of sensor nodes is usually as many as several billions. The time and cost of replacing batteries is enormous, so many wireless sensors must be able to charge automatically. In this direction, harvesting energy from the surrounding environment is the preferred solution, and other efforts include extending the battery replacement interval or even replacing the battery by increasing the capacity of the rechargeable storage device. At present, sensor nodes can obtain a wide variety of energy sources, such as solar energy, thermal energy and vibration energy, and even use the surrounding radio frequency (RF) and the kinetic energy of the user for energy conversion. In response, semiconductor companies are investing in diverse energy harvesters, memory and load technologies to capture as much energy as possible from different sources of energy.

Wireless charging is a measurable and sensible way to deal with challenges, especially in the field of wearable devices. Wearable devices are becoming a fertile ground for the Internet of Things world. According to Credit Suisse Group, in the next five years, smartphones will become "private clouds" for wearable devices, and on average each user will carry at least one or two such wearables with them. Wearable devices bring revolutionary changes to people's lives, but also bring a lot of inconveniences in use. One of the important things is that these miniature devices often use different charging cables and connectors. Correspondingly, wireless charging technology has become an important choice to eliminate inconvenience and greatly enhance the user experience. Because of this, wireless charging technology has become a hot technology in the current technology industry, and formed three major standards camp - WPC, PMA and A4WP. Among them, WPC supporters include ASUS, HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Blackberry and Sony. The manufacturers and organizations behind PMA include AT&T, Google, Duracell Battery, Starbucks, PowermatTechnologies, Flextronics, and the US Federal Communications Commission. (FCC) and ENERGY STAR, mainly using electromagnetic induction wireless charging technology, A4WP support vendors include Broadcom, Gil Electronics, IDT, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, Gill Industries and WiTricity, with the goal of including portable electronic products and electric vehicles. The wireless charging of electronic products within the establishment of technical standards, the use of magnetic resonance wireless charging technology.

If automatic charging and wireless charging are "open source", then the lower power management technology is a coping strategy in the "throttle" direction. It is worth noting that power management techniques must adopt different strategies depending on the terminal. For example, wearable devices focus on higher efficiency to make battery standby time longer, and because of space constraints, power management IC package size must be smaller and smaller; in the Internet of Vehicles, for power consumption in automotive applications Processors, power management ICs should maximize efficiency to reduce heat generation, help with heat dissipation and improve reliability. At the same time, as application processor power architectures become more complex, power management must be more granular to optimize system performance. In addition, an important trend in power management technology is that it must become more and more secure. This is because the high degree of autonomy of the Internet of Things and systems leads to less and less human supervision and participation, and the security and reliability of the devices themselves become more important.

Editor in charge: Tian Wenjie