Self-Powered Wireless Detector Wins Two Awards

Self-powered sensors and other wireless components is a growing field because of the efficiency they can bring to a wireless system. Usually, wireless sensors have to rely on battery power. But when you have a building outfitted with hundreds of sensors, it can be difficult to change batteries in all of them. Self-powered sensors eliminate that struggle.

The EnOcean Alliance, www.enocean-alliance.org, San Ramon, Calif., is a consortium of companies working to develop and promote self-powered wireless monitoring and control systems for sustainable buildings. The consortium recently presented two awards to the EnOcean-enabled SENSOLUX system from PEHA, www.peha.de, Lüdenscheid, Germany, one for ‘best innovation in green product or service’ and the other for ‘best innovation in building services.’ The system is an interesting example of self-powered wireless technology.

The consortium recently presented two awards to the EnOcean-enabled SENSOLUX system from PEHA, www.peha.de, Lüdenscheid, Germany, one for ‘best innovation in green product or service’ and the other for ‘best innovation in building services.’

The service-free and energy-autonomous SENSOLUX solar detector enables control of lighting according to demand and is governed by the presence of occupants. It registers the presence of persons, measures the momentary light level, and then transmits the data wirelessly to a switching actuator capable of managing up to eight presence detectors and eight wireless switches.

As soon as the last person has left a room the lights are turned off. Lights also go off once a specified level of daylight is reached. If required, users can intervene at any time and set their preferred level of lighting manually. In addition to stand-alone applications, the SENSOLUX presence detector can integrate into a building management system via a number of different bus gateways.

This detector is based on EnOcean's STM 110 module, which derives its energy from powerful indoor solar cells. There are no batteries and no cables needed, and it can be relocated in a matter of minutes. By harvesting the necessary power from its surroundings, e.g. from linear motion, light, or differences in temperature, data can be detected and then transmitted by short-range wireless over a distance of up to 30 meters (100 feet) within buildings and 300 meters (1000 feet) in a free field.

(Source www.m2mmag.com, 16.10.2009)