
The Solar Energy Harvester module includes a high-efficiency solar(2.25x2.25”) panel optimized for operating indoors under low-intensityfluorescent lights, which provides enough power to run a wireless sensorapplication with no additional batteries. Inputs are also available for externalenergy harvesters such as thermal, piezoelectric, or another solar panel.
The system also manages and stores additional energy in a pair of thin-filmrechargeable EnerChips from Cymbet whichare capable of delivering enough power for 400+ transmissions. The EnerChips actas an energy buffer that stores the energy while the application is sleeping andhas light available to harvest. The batteries are environmentally friendly andcan be recharged thousands of times. They also have a very low self discharge,which is vital for a no-power, energy harvesting system.
The eZ430-RF2500is used to run the energy harvesting application. It is a complete USB-basedMSP430 wireless development tool and provides all the hardware and softwarenecessary to use the MSP430F2274microcontroller and CC25002.4-GHz wireless transceiver. It includes a USB debugging interface thatallows for real-time, in-system debugging and programming for the MSP430, and itis also the interface to transfer data to a PC from your wireless system.
The integrated temperature and RF signal strength indicators can be used tomonitor the environment, and many external sensors can be used to collectadditional data.