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TPL EnerPak™ Energy Harvesting Power Management System Nears Two-Year Performance in Utility’s Wireless Sensor Network Trial

July 2010

TPL of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Texas Instruments of Dallas, Texas announced today the patented EnerPak™ energy harvesting power management systems have successfully completed 22 months of field-testing. Several EnerPak™ are powering a network of wireless measurement sensors monitoring the performance of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)-insulated components of a major public electric utility substation. This is a significant milestone demonstrating the performance and reliability of self-powered wireless sensors and networks using the EnerPak™ power management system with the ultra-low power Texas Instrument MSP430 microcontroller.

Because of the damage to the environment that can be caused by leakage of SF6, the utility developed their own wireless measurement and reporting system to continuously measure the integrity of their components that use SF6. When the utility first trialed their system using conventional batteries for sensor powering, they found the batteries failed within a few weeks. The utility then turned to TPL and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to determine if TPL’s EnerPak™ could provide reliable, long-term power for their wireless sensor network.

In the 22 months of operation at the Albuquerque, New Mexico substation, the eight EnerPak™ power supplies, each powered by a small photovoltaic array, have performed reliably and consistently. In fact, each of the power supplies and sensors have been operational continuously since the trial began.

In addition to traditional product testing, real-world field-evaluation such as this continues to demonstrate the long-term performance of the EnerPak™ supercapacitor-battery power management system and the TI MSP430 microcontroller. The sensor network includes both a sensor node-to-sensor node wireless communications capability as well as wireless transmission of data to a central gateway processing station. During the trial, the EnerPak™ systems have experienced heavy rain, strong winds and dust, and snow. Summer temperatures have approached 100ºF, with winter temperatures as low 5ºF.

The utility engineer responsible for the development of the SF6 monitoring system praised the performance of EnerPak™, stating that it continues to meet all of the powering requirements demanded by the sensor network. Because of the costs associated with the replacement of conventional batteries, he added that the use of wireless sensor networks have a critical need for a long-term power management solution like EnerPak™.

The EnerPak™ optimizes the combined performance of supercapacitors and rechargeable batteries to deliver the best power management for autonomous devices like industrial sensors, wireless gateways and video surveillance. Through a unique microprocessor/charge pump configuration, the harvested energy is either used by the sensor or efficiently stored for later use. The supercapacitors provide extremely efficient pulse power. The rechargeable battery, because of its high energy density, serves as the primary energy storage source, acting as a reserve when the energy harvesting source is not able to provide enough system power.

Built around the ultra-low power Texas Instruments MSP430 micro-controller unit, the EnerPak™ can consume as little as 5-8uA, delivering the most harvested energy for the application load. The system is capable of extracting energy from a variety of energy harvesting devices such as photovoltaic arrays, thermoelectric generators, vibration harvesters, and other generator devices.
BR> Physical Acoustics, Inc., Princeton, NJ, a part of the Mistras Group, licensed the SF6 monitoring technology from the electrical utility. They recently deployed their first commercial product incorporating this monitoring capability in a New York utility location as a beta test site. While the beta monitoring package is utilizing a heavy-duty package of conventional batteries as its power supply, Physical Acoustics will evaluate the need for energy-harvesting and the EnerPak in their second generation SF6 monitoring product line.

TI Enables Innovation with Broad Range of Microcontrollers
From ultra-low power 16-bit microcontrollers in the MSP430 platform to industry standard 32-bit microcontrollers and the high performance TMS320C2000TM controller platform, TI offers the broadest range of embedded control solutions. Designers can accelerate their designs to market by tapping into TI's complete free software and low cost hardware tools, extensive third-party offerings and technical support. For more information on TI's controllers, see TI's website.

TPL's EnerPak™
TPL designs, develops and manufactures innovative power systems for wireless sensors. Our EnerPak™ products uniquely realize the potential of energy harvesting systems for meeting the power needs of wireless sensors. Our design uses energy harvesters to provide continuous low-level power while simultaneously charging proprietary energy storage systems that provide back-up and pulse power capabilities.

For further information please contact Trista Mosman at 505.342.4439 or via email.



TPL Awarded NIH Phase II SBIR

June 2010

Radiation therapy is one of the primary weapons in the battle against cancer, but even with the advances we have made, there remains significant room for improvement in radiation-based treatment technologies. Proton therapy is considered the most advanced form of radiation therapy available for cancer treatment, but the size and cost of currently available proton-therapy devices have severely limited the technology’s use and availability. The high-voltage machines required to generate proton beams are massive—weighing several hundred tons and requiring 90,000 square feet to house.

They also cost $100M or more to build. A substantial reduction in the size and cost is required for proton therapy machines to be rendered practical for use in typical cancer-treatment centers. Ideally, a proton-therapy machine would be miniaturized to the point that it would fit into a standard linac radiation vault and could replace existing X-ray machines.

TPL Inc., and collaborators have defined a technical approach that we believe will allow development of the first low-cost, compact proton-therapy machine. As envisioned, the new device will be an order of magnitude smaller and one-fifth the cost of the machines being used today. The key to developing this next-generation proton-therapy device is an extremely compact accelerator design based on a novel, high-voltage insulating material (dielectric) developed by TPL. This enabling material, developed initially for defense-related pulse-power applications, is a composite structure comprised of a formulated polymer resin and nano-size ceramic particles.

In Phase I of this multi-phase SBIR project, an engineering feasibility effort was proposed based on the use of TPL’s established composite dielectric technology. The project focused on demonstrating the feasibility of developing the components that will serve as the building blocks for the new, miniaturized system and on demonstrating target performance capabilities from those components.

Proof of feasibility in Phase I set the stage for prototype development and demonstration/validation by TPL and its collaborators for a Phase II SBIR project. The validation work supported by Phase II will allow us to prove the value of TPL’s proprietary enabling component for this technology and will position TPL and it’s collaborators to partner with an industry leader to complete the development, approval, and manufacturing tasks required for “Phase III” commercialization of this exciting new technology. We anticipate that success in attaining our goals of substantially reducing cost and size of proton-therapy units will open up a very significant new marketplace in the U.S. and abroad for this type of cancer-treatment device.

For more information please contact Trista Mosman at 505.342.4439 or via email.




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