Recently, a research team at the University of Washington, inspired by the way dandelion seeds disperse, has developed a battery-free miniature environmental sensor device that can fly to great distances with the help of wind, according to Memes Consulting. Placing more sensors in a wide area provides a unique new approach.
Environmental sensors are often used to measure temperature, humidity, gas, rainfall, light or other environmental factors under different environmental conditions. The new environmental sensor device developed by the University of Washington in the United States can easily cover thousands of sensors over a wide area with the help of wind without the need for researchers to spend time setting them up.
"During the dandelion seed dispersal flight, the pappus around the center of the seeds slows their descent. We made a two-dimensional projection of them to create the basic design of the structure of the bionic device." The study's principal investigator, "As we add weight, the crested structure of the device bends inward, so we added a loop to make the device stronger and expand the area to help slow its speed of decent."
A tiny device based on the principle of dandelion seed dispersal that can carry at least 4 sensors (Source: University of Washington)
The device weighs about 30 times the weight of 1 mg of dandelion seeds. Still, it can fly 100 meters in light winds. Each device can carry at least four tiny sensors, and after they land, they can also share data from 60 meters away.
To keep the device lightweight, the researchers opted to use solar panels instead of batteries for power. However, this has certain drawbacks, such as the panels facing down when the unit is dropped due to flipping in the air, or not being able to operate at night.
Although the devices landed with the solar panels facing up 95 percent of the time, the researchers were still faced with the problem of how to get them to function properly at night. Since the electronics are turned off at sunset, even when the sun rises, these devices require a small amount of power to restart.
"The challenge with this project is that most units consume a lot of energy for a short period of time when they are first turned on," says Vikram Iyer, "because they check themselves to make sure everything is working properly before executing code or tasks. .It also happens when a phone or laptop is turned on, except that they have batteries."
To solve this problem, the researchers added capacitors to the design of the electronic device, allowing it to store enough power to keep running at night.
"Using a small circuit, we can detect how much energy is stored in the electronics," said Vikram Iye. "As the sun rises, more energy comes in, and when the circuit detects that the stored energy is above a certain threshold, it triggers The rest of the system is up and running."
To better understand how far the devices can travel in the wind, the researchers experimented with dropping them from drones. In addition, by adjusting the size of the device, it can achieve a better distance distribution when it lands.
Since there is no battery in the unit, there is no drain condition, which allows it to run continuously unless the unit fails. While this has significant advantages, there are certain pitfalls associated with placing a large number of electronic devices in a vast environment.
The team is currently investigating potential applications of this technology. Vikram Iye said: "This research is just getting started, which is what makes it exciting. There are still many research directions for us to explore, such as developing larger-scale application deployments, creating devices that can change shape when they land. , or to add mobility to the device so that it can move on the ground toward our area of interest."
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