Overview
The Lifetime Power® Energy Harvesting Development Kit for Wireless Sensors, featuring PIC® MCUs with nanoWatt XLP technology, enables the development of battery-free wireless sensor nodes and other low-power, untethered devices.
With Powercast’s P2110 Powerharvester® Receivers as the power source, this development kit converts energy from radio waves (RF energy) into DC power to operate the wireless sensor nodes. PIC® microcontrollers with nanoWatt XLP technology enable low-power system operation, and wireless communications is based on the MRF24J40 Radio and MiWi™ P2P protocol. Read an in depth review from Fred Eady of Nuts & Volts Magazine.
Features
● Wireless Sensor Module with XLP PIC® MCU and MRF24J40 radio for low power operation
● RF transmitter for sending power and data
● XLP 16-bit Development Board “access point” for receiving sensor data and displaying on PC
● Access point has multiple power options, Real-time Clock, 32.768kHz oscillator, EEPROM, buttons, LEDs, and USB.
● Prototyping area for adding additional sensors and circuits
● PIC24F eXtreme Low Power MCU processes sensor data
● Simple out-of-the-box operation
What’s included
● Powercaster™ Transmitter – 915MHz, 3W EIRP
● Powercast P2110-EVB evaluation board, including two antennas and expansion connector (Qty. 2)
● Wireless sensor module - preloaded with operating software (Qty. 2)
● XLP 16-bit Development Board (access point) - pre-loaded with operating software
● MRF24J40MA PICtail Daughter Board - 802.15.4, 2.4 GHz radio module
● PICkit 3 Programmer/Debugger
● USB cables
● Instructions
More about the LifetimePower® Energy Harvesting Development Kit for Wireless Sensors
The battery-free wireless sensor nodes include sensors for temperature, humidity, and light, along with an external input. The software for the wireless sensor nodes and the access point is pre-loaded for simple, out-of-the-box operation. The hardware and software was optimized by Microchip and Powercast for extremely low power system operation.
This is a true development platform for realizing energy harvesting applications. The Microchip nanoWatt XLP PIC MCUs are ideal for these low power applications with sleep currents down to 9nA, active mode currents down to 45uA/MHz, code execution efficiency, and multiple wake-up sources. With the end devices powered only by radio waves (RF energy), the development kit enables rapid prototyping of low power applications such as RF sensors, temperature/environmental sensors, building automation and security sensors to name just a few. For software development and programming, the kit includes the PICkit™ 3 programmer/debugger for use with Microchip’s free MPLAB™ Integrated Development Environment.
The XLP 16-bit Development Board with the MRF24J40MA PICtail™ Daughter Board (2.4GHz, 802.15.4) is utilized as an access point to collected data from the wirelessly-powered sensor nodes. These data are reported to a PC user interface via a USB connection. This allows for experimentation and balancing of energy collection vs. energy use, maximizing the benefits of the harvested energy. With the included powering receiving antennas, typical operation of the battery-free wireless sensor nodes is possible from up to 40-50 feet.
Other Energy Harvesting Solutions from Microchip
Solar Energy Harvesting - XLP 16-bit Energy Harvesting Development Kit
Energy Harvesting Prototyping Platform – XLP 16-bit Development Board
Part numbers & Software
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