● ONiO’s multifunctional chips, which can harvest power from radio waves and piezo electricity as well as solar and thermal energy, will accelerate the development of “ambient IoT”.
● Without batteries, IoT devices will be much easier to maintain and much less harmful to the environment.
What do you see as the main problem facing the IoT devices industry?
At a time when systems in many sectors, such as agriculture, urban planning and home automation are increasingly dependent on networks, the long-heralded, mass deployment of IoT devices is struggling to overcome a huge problem caused by reliance on batteries. As it stands, the Internet of Things, which is supposed to pave the way for trillions of sensors worldwide, will create a need for trillions of batteries. Even if they have an average lifespan of three years, it is clear that batteries cannot provide a sustainable, environmentally-friendly solution to power this technology. Let’s not forget that in environmental terms, batteries are the ‘dirtiest’ components in IoT devices. So we asked ourselves: do IoT devices need to systematically consume so much energy? And do they really need to be powered by batteries? The answer is they don’t. Innovation in the emergent field of ambient energy IoT along with the development of very low consumption sensors have created a growing range of alternatives. Solar, and thermal energy can already be used, and if IoT sensors are equipped with antennae, they can also harvest energy from radio waves. At the same time, indoor photovoltaic technologies are now mature enough to supply power to many small electronic and IoT devices.
The platform enables developers to optimize their code to ensure that power use is kept to a minimum
Can you tell is about the platform that you have developed?
Our experience in semiconductors gave us the impetus to create a platform to expedite the design and production of multifunctional microcontrollers which are solely powered by ambient energy. The aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of IoT devices by doing away with their reliance on batteries and also to increase their lifespan. Various manufacturers are already producing components that can be used to make batteryless IoT devices, but we wanted to go a step further by building an integrated solution with a fully comprehensive range of functionalities, so we designed a microcontroller with integrated computer processing, sensor, and radio functions, and an architecture that is unlike any other on today’s market, which means that it has the lowest possible power requirements. It’s a kind of Swiss Army knife that will enable manufacturers to speed up the design the design and development of eco-friendly IoT devices.
In today’s competitive environment, how do you intend to make your technology a market standard?
Our chips are based on the royalty-free and open-source RISC-V architecture, which is the current industry standard, so they are compatible with all types of devices. Our platform also provides developers with an analyser to evaluate power requirements when setting parameters for functions, so at every stage they can see if their code needs to be optimized to ensure that energy use is kept to a minimum. As it stands, these chips communicate via Bluetooth, and we are currently working on increasing their range. We also offer turn-key products like batteryless electronic shelf labels for retailers. For devices of this kind, we have succeeded in reducing the number of components from ten chips to just one.
What are the next steps in your plan for further development?
We intend to continue investing in R&D to improve the operational capabilities and energy harvesting efficiency of our microcontrollers. At the same time, to ensure the success of
our technology in this market, we will develop relations with future partners and distribution networks, while initiating co-development projects for specific applications. Creating a platform with a good user experience for developers will also play a crucial role in our strategy to foster the emergence of an ONiO ecosystem, which will make our technology a standard solution for battery-free IoT solutions. Last but not least, we will be focusing on emerging markets, where demand for durable, maintenance-free IoT solutions is growing very rapidly.
Piezoelectric energy, or piezoelectricity, is electrical energy that accumulates in certain materials, which can be released when they are subjected to mechanical stress (pressure, torsion, etc.).
Kjetil Meisal
