As the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices increase, the ability to implement sensors in challenging and remote environments has been limited due to the device’s power management requirements.
As a result, global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts that Ambient IoT device shipments will reach 1.1 billion units in 2030. The report spotlighted a noticeable growth in suppliers who are focused on harvesting elemental energy to include photovoltaic, RF, piezoelectric, and others on Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs).
PMICs are the mechanism to power IoT devices and are integrated into SoCs or paired with MCUs to address the specific energy requirements for the end IoT device application.
Leaders Driving Innovations
The designers of PMICs, working to develop chips that can store harvested energy on the device in the most efficient way possible. They include Exeger, Energous, Epishine, Powercast, EnOcean, and Ossia.
“Innovation has been led by the designers of power generators, focusing on optimizing techniques to convert ambient energy into usable energy,” said Jonathan Budd, Analyst at ABI Research. “The designers of Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs), working to develop chips that can store harvested energy on the device in the most efficient way possible.”
Ambient IoT is Gaining Traction
The growth of the industry is a result of IoT device suppliers focusing on new energy harvesting solutions to overcome the device power management problem according to Tancred Taylor, analyst for ABI Research. The term Ambient IoT refers to devices powered in part by energy harvested from the device’s environment. The advantage is the increased number of devices the infrastructure can manage simultaneously.
“The energy harvesting component is the practical consequence, because purely battery-powered devices create scalability challenges from a cost, sustainability, and field management perspective,” said Taylor.
The ABI report noted that a niche ecosystem of startup PMIC vendors has focused exclusively on energy harvesting for Ambient IoT since 2014. This focus is beginning to show dividends in the marketplace and is providing new IoT solutions into difficult environments.
“The trend is towards enabling ‘energy-agnostic’ power management, where PMICs can manage energy captured from any harvested input, whether that be PV, RF, piezoelectric, or thermoelectric harvesting. OEMs can select which inputs are needed based on the nature of the ambient energy inputs in proximity to the device,” the report stated.
Energy Harvesting Devices are Not New
Currently Ambient IoT devices are commonly associated with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology for theoretical and practical reasons according to the ABI Research report.
This approach is due to RAIN RFID’s vast deployment of wireless endpoints. The application of UHF RFID is often overlapped with Ambient IoT uses cases in terms an identity and sensing network. Taylor states that RFID hardware suppliers are beginning to plan for the impact of this technology to their evolving product roadmaps.
“Ambient IoT is not technology dependent,” he said. “Additionally, 3GPP and IEEE, the RAIN RFID ecosystem is increasingly thinking about how they should be positioning themselves in relation to Ambient IoT.”