Final Report Summary - FEROP (Flat EnOcean Room Operating Panels)
Executive Summary:
In accordance with the Europe 2020 triple-20 objectives and the directive 2010/31/EU, all new buildings shall be nearly zero-energy consumption by December, 31st 2020. New buildings occupied and owned by public authorities shall comply with the same criteria by December, 31st 2018. The Commission encourages increasing the numbers of this type of building by putting in place national plans, which include:
• the Member State’s application in practice of the definition of nearly zero-energy buildings;
• the intermediate targets for improving the energy performance of new buildings by 2015;
• Information on the policies and financial measures adopted to encourage improvements in energy performance of buildings.
With its Flat EnOcean Room Operating Panel, the FEROP project contributes to meeting these “green” European objectives insofar as it allows making users sensitive to energy consumption and energy saving. The objective of such a system is to provide the users with the exact view of their consumption inside each room, but also to set temperature, air quality and other comfort parameters by interacting with the home automation system. Using FEROP (commercial name Displ’Ever) system linked to a home automation system, the users will be aware of the energy impact and associated cost of each setting he may choose in each room. For instance, he may warm the bathroom during a pre-programmed time or recorded occupancies habits during the week to comply with his own schedule and appreciate the money saving. In addition to good insulation and air proofing, smart air renewal strategies, automatic light dimming and shut down and economic mode for heater and coolers can allow the user to save up to 30% plus an extra 16% through an adequate behavior. The Displ’Ever will address the 16% saving from behavior.
Such kind of information requires energy metering and data transfer up to the display. The most convenient way to consolidate such data is the EnOcean wireless standard. The latter, designed by the German SME EnOcean GmbH, is the core technology of the project. EnOcean GmbH has indeed proposed a system relying on Energy harvesting Wireless Technology. It is composed of wireless sensor solutions for use in buildings and industrial installations.
EnOcean modules combine micro-energy converters with ultra-low power electronics and reliable wireless communications. This system enables wireless communications between batteryless wireless sensors, switches, controllers and gateways. In April 2012, the EnOcean wireless standard was ratified as the international standard ISO/IEC 14543-3-10, which is optimized for wireless solutions with ultra-low power consumption and energy harvesting. The standard covers the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) layers 1-3 which are the physical, data link and networking layers.
Thanks to the Displ’Ever system, EnOcean customers must be able to create self-powered wireless sensor solutions for efficient energy management in buildings and other industrial applications. But the Displ’Ever is not only an EnOcean compliant design it includes a growth potential for emerging low energy communication like ZigBee green, Bluetooth Low energy and Thread (based on universal 2.4Ghz 6LoWPAN and supported by Google). To be noted than ZigBee, EnOcean and Zwave alliances announced, they will be the application layer of Thread. It will also be an open platform providing the opportunity to OEM customer, SME and individuals to develop new applications.
The efficiency of amorphous cells is overpassing DSC (Die Sensitive Cell) efficiency for a lot cheaper and thinner design so first in class Amorphous PV has been selected.
The need for an open platform has been addressed and the technical solution is based on an embedded light Java engine called Micro EJ. This allows developers to provide applications running on Java and easily developed on a PC thank to a SDK (software Development Kit). The firmware update is based on NFC as most of smartphones now have NFC including the last apple phones. This allows users to easily download applications and install them on the Displ’Ever.
The theoretical balancing between energy consumption, generation and storage has been achieved after a lot of efforts.
So, with the new ability to comply with all existing low energy radio protocols including the emerging IOT and by providing an open platform able to run Java applications, the Displ’Ever should become a universal room operating panel platform for wireless building automation.
The opening to IOT should also extend the market size.
Project Context and Objectives:
Objective 1. Comfort setting with Energy consumption impacts
Description
This device had to allow user to perform:
• Temperature setting in a room with associated predictive cost impact;
• Air quality setting in a room with associated predictive cost impact;
• Eventually lighting and or blinds setting with associated predictive cost impact;
Indicator
Friendly display of cost impact. Compared with current state of the art, such features only exist in automotive. Global design used in automotive has been translated to building management in order to be familiar to customers. Despite the fact that automotive relies on autonomy or liter of gasoline per kilometre. The results has been analysed in the end user analysis of WP7.
Result
At the end of the project, we provided 10 functional prototypes as a proof of concept of the feasibility of the product. A part of a work package was also dedicated to experimentations by end-users to get their feedback on the product.
At the end of WP7, this objective has been reached.
Linked results
D6.4
Objective 2. Make the user sensitive to sustainable issues
Description
This objective was to improve user behaviour by providing a system able to display effective energy consumption in real time and predictive financial impact related to comfort settings.
Based on the provided information by the system, users should improve their behaviour to optimize energy consumption.
Indicator
The most important indicator of this objective is the usage of the device. In real conditions, it was planned to have a 80% ratio use. This indicator gives a feedback about the potential behaviour improvement.
Result
During the specification phase, an MBI simulator has been tested by a sample group (worldwide with different culture) of users and comments taken into account. Different updates have need released (latest been version 6) and can be seen on http://uint.fr/Ferop/v6/. At the end of the project, another sample group of users have been asked to test the device for 3 months.
At the end of WP7, this objective has been reached.
Objective 3. Link the device to a home automation system
Description
This objective was to integrate Displ’Ever devices into ecosystems to demonstrate ability to communicate with home and building automation environment. Displ’Ever simplify the current process of controlling energy impact and associated costs inside rooms/buildings. Users can be pro-active and be able to set temperature and air quality according to occupancies, unoccupancies, night, vacation.
Indicator
Displ’Ever device is integrated into ecosystem and functional. All functionalities have been be validated, especially Smart Ack.
Result
At the end of WP7, this objective has been reached.
Linked results
Consortium links with home automation actors.
Objective 4: Touch screen layer is compatible with the 6 other layers
Description
The objective was to design a sensitive touch screen that could be compatible with the different layers without disturbing the way they operate.
Indicator
The control through the touch screen should be user friendly and as fast as it can be with electronic paper display. This performance should be performed homogenously on the whole surface screen. Reliability of the response to an action shall be over 99%.
Result
As capacitive touch screen compatibility with radio emission has been proven for mobile phone and tablets, the objective has reached in M10 during the touch screen management test report. The sensitivity of the touch screen has required removing the air between the PV cell window and the touch screen layer by the use of special glue like in tablets. It makes the device impossible to repair but there were no alternative.
Linked results
The compatibility of the different layers has required moving the sub 1Ghz antenna from the back of the display and touch screen to the side of the product.
Objective 5: Realisation of the electronic circuit
Description
The electronic circuit to be designed had to be very thin, and have extremely low consumption for energy harvesting compatibility.
Care has been taken to design antenna and RF part in order to make them work with the others layers (the PV being a real shielding).
Indicator
Radio communication range and pattern (30m indoor through a wall). Thickness of the final assembly (objective <2.5mm). Autonomy (3 days in darkness after being exposed at 200 lux during 8 hours).
Result
At the end of the project, when the hardware has been validated, the Firmware has been finalized after being tested.
At the end of WP7, Most of objectives have been reached. The only deviation is the thickness with 3.5mm instead of 2.5mm.
The radio communication has shown 30% better range performance than expected.
Linked results
Validation of both software and hardware aspects.
Project Results:
The FEROP project has been a real challenge in many aspects
The main challenges were:
• Powering the device by energy harvesting (ambient light)
• Developing the EnOcean radio stack
• Providing growth potential for other radio communication
• Developing a friendly and intuitive man machine interface
• Developing a universal platform for user and OEM to develop and upload application
We will detail here after each challenge results and associated foreground
-Powering by energy harvesting-
This challenge implies to balance energy generation and energy consumption. In addition energy storage for running during night time is also a tremendous challenge as we decided to follow Building automation requirements from KNX standard ie 10 years life span.
Minimising energy consumption has been performed by:
• Selecting low quiescent current component, low energy running consumption components and especially MCU. The first low consumption MCU generation STM31L1 was running at 30 MHz but the de-ghosting of the EPD was too slow and not acceptable between 2 pictures. Fortunately the STM31 L4 (L like low energy) has ben released mid 2015 allowing running at 80 MHz. At this speed the de-ghosting became acceptable. This is the only low energy MCU running at such speed on the market in 2016 and we have been lucky that it became available for our project.
• Defining functioning modes with sleeping modes and short wake up time (no display refresh of EPD at night as it is not visible but an immediate refresh when the light comes back)
• Use of new memory technology called FRAM (Fero Magnetic RAM) instead of SRAM to keep data between 2 wake ups (reducing quiescent current from 20uA to less than 1uA)
• Use of Electronic Paper Display for the screen. After evaluating low consumption bi stable LCD we concluded that EPD was the only solution. Beside we evaluated an alternative EPD maker from China (lower cost) but the energy consumption was about twice of the original from EInk.
• The touch screen could not stay active all the time because of the consumption and we had to implement a hand approach detection to wake up the touch screen. Many attempts have been made for using the PV as a sensor but we found out the voltage was to changing when pooling the current to charge the system. Even by detecting the current change, the results have shown not being reliable enough. We finally selected a special system with IR transmitting LED and detecting hand by reflexion. This sensor has hopefully a reasonable consumption and perform the Lux measurement too.
Harvesting energy and energy storage has been performed by:
• Designing a custom PV with a transparent widow in the middle and efficiency better than 5µw/cm2. Many vendors have been evaluated. The vendor selected has to push the technology to the limit in order to reach such efficiency and manufacturing require performing ranking (lost around 20%)
• Using MPPT to improve efficiency of the PV (pulling current form the PV in order to reach about 75% of the open voltage in ore to get the maximum power of IxV). Various MMPT circuit have been evaluated and the selected one from AD has the lowest quiescent current.
• Designing a special circuitry to limit the stress of the Lithium Ion batteries generally limited to 500 charging cycles. First we used 2 batteries. One is used by the system when the other one is changing. This divides the number of changing cycle by 2. In addition when using the battery at 10% to 20% of the total capacity it extends the number of cycle tremendously. Therefore we used overdesigned batteries and used gauges to make sure to stop charging or discharging when overpassing the 10% centred in the middle of the capacity. In addition high current pics are also stressing the battery and reduce the lifespan. As the EPD de-ghost and refresh require the maximum of the current of the system, we used a super capacitor of about 1Farad. This super cap is slowly charged by the PV and or the battery during the sleeping times of the product. The advantage is also that if the battery is already full (55% of C), the extra energy goes into the cap and is not lost. This also allow a rapid wake up after a long storage as the PV will only start recharging the battery if there is extra energy after having filled the cap. This system may probably not be patented but we will keep it secret among partners as we can use it for other projects. NanoSense is already designing an autonomous Indoor air Quality probe derived from this foreground. We found a revolutionary Super cap technology during the CES in Las Vegas. This new technology allows very low current leakages (usually 1µA per farad) and very low impedance in a flat design.
-Developing the EnOcean radio stack-
EnOcean radio modules made by EnOcean GmbH are expensive and don’t fit in our thin design (thickness of the module is too big) so we had to develop the radio stack and find the appropriated transceiver. The original module use an ASIC and the challenge have been to find an off the shelve transceiver.
• Transceiver selection: a dozen of transceivers have been evaluated. The difficulty comes from the fact that the synchronisation is made on only 4 bits! Real time data processing for synchronisation form the MCU has proven not being reliable enough (50% max). The solution has been to collect of the received data in an embedded into the transceiver FIFO and to identify the synchronisation not in real time. The only transceiver on the market able to perform such process has been the Spirit1 from ST. When the FIFO reach 50%, the MCU read it and try to find the synchro then analyse the message following the synchro. As the paid load or even the synchro can be splitted on 2 different FIFO reading, we gad to manage this split. The stack also implements the 902 Mhz for the US market using the same principle event is this standard requires a synchro on 8 bits (much more easier)
• This stack was already a background from NanoSense developed on a Swiss transceiver now purchased by On Semi and offering EnOcean module alternative (probably based on the NanoSense stack provided to them during the development).
• ESP3: On top of the stack a protocol called ESP3 and used on EnOcean modules has been developed in order to allow easy integration and interface with the stack. This part of the stack is a foreground
-Providing growth potential for other radio communication-
The challenge has been to find a low energy 2.4Ghz transceiver already running Bluetooth Low energy and able to run Thread in a new future. We first used a Texas Instrument transceiver but when Thread appears as TI was not involved in the Thread Alliance and was not offering a stack in a near future, we finally switched to the EFR 32 from Silicon lab. The Thread stack is already available for the EFR 32 as well as a good BLE stack since Silab purchased in 2015 a well know BLE stack developer (using initially TI transceiver in their modules). The BLE and Thread stacks are stored into the MCU of the EFR 32 transceiver and can be activated one or another via a simple flag. The BLE stack 4.0 then 4.1 and 4.2 and now 5 can be uploaded into the transceiver via NFC.
-Developing a friendly and intuitive man machine interface-
The friendly and intuitive man machine interface has been developed thanks to:
• The use fs a web MMI simulator having the response time of an EPD for the de-ghosting (http://uint.fr/Ferop/v6)
• The inputs from the different partners
-Developing a universal platform for user and OEM to develop and upload application-
The universal platform has been developed thanks to:
• The use of Micro EJ platform especially adapted to the management of an EPD (for the first time) allowing easy development of java application with graphical user interface (GUI). This platform developed by a French SME called IS2T also allow the use of a SDK (Software Development Kit) for OEM or anyone who wants to develop his own application.
• The use of Java Applets as application software module like in smartphone (Apps)
• The use of NCF to upload on a smartphone or tablet then to download on the FEROP. NFC can be used to update the entire system firmware of Applets.
Potential Impact:
-Potential impact-
Energy saving of buildings can be split as follow
• 50% envelope insulation (passive)
• 34% active control (Building automation)
• 16% human eco behavior (set points, wearing...)
For years, fiscal incentives in Europe have promoted envelope insulation including change for double glazed windows and air proofing. Building automation is becoming popular, affordable and standardized. Some regulations across Europe are promoting energy consumption display in an attempts to improve human behavior.
The Displ’Ever can do a lot more than just displaying passed consumption, it performs energy consumption forecast computation based on T° setpoint, IAQ set point, light dimming level... and passed consumption. The big advantage is that each time a user will change a set point, the energy consumption forecast displayed for one day, one week, one month or even one year will help having a greener behavior.
The principle of the forecast energy consumption used in Dislp’Ever is inspired from modern automotive display. Automotive industry has started reducing gasoline consumption since a long time before politics started wishing to reduce building energy consumption in new and even in ancient buildings
In order to reach the maximum potential saving of 16%, displaying the past consumption is not enough as this energy is already burned and users have no idea on what they should act and behave.
The Displ’Ever is the today most comprehensive energy saving device using forecast energy consumption feature. We can estimate that the theoretical 16% saving can be reach thanks to Displ’Ever.
With a market forecast of 100 000 pieces per year in Europe, it would represent 1 million pieces in 10 years.
If we consider the worth case of 100% being installed in housing (Lower consumption than for office buildings), the average energy consumption can be estimated as follow:
The fuel consumption in Europe for premises heating represent an annual expense of 50 Billion Euros. The fuel represent only 21% of heaters of European premises. Nevertheless the market is balanced between fuel, gas, coal and electricity depending of countries (France having the largest electric heater market of Europe thanks to its low cost nuclear electricity but this is a special case).
If we make the assumption that the price of energy is about the same for fuel, gas or electricity for the same energy delivered because of the competition, the total budget for premises heating can be estimated to about 250 billion (based on 50 Billion for 21%).
There are around 190 Million of houses of flats in Europe (Source Eurostat 2014) so the average energy consumption budget is 250 Billion € / 190 Million = 1315 € par premise and per year.
With a 16% saving for 1 million premises equipped with the Displ’Ever, it represent a total saving of 1.3 Billion of Euros per year.
When considering the CO2 footprint, it represents the following:
10 CBM of fuel cost around 5 700€
10 CBM of fuel generate 26.2 tons of C02
So 1.3 billion € of fuel saving represent 6 million tons of CO2 saving per year
This assumption in made with fuel but it would be about the same with gas and electricity when generated with fuel. Only electricity from nuclear plants, win turbines and hydraulic would moderate this result but not more than about 10%.
As a result we can estimate the Displ’Ever to save up to 5.4 Million tons of CO2 emission each year after 10 years for a hypothesis of 100K pieces sold each year.
-Dissemination activities-
In order to be recognizable, FEROP needed a trade mark. After many brain storming partners agreed on Energy SAV’R
This first trade mark has been registered. On the way, we found out there were many other applications than a ROP for energy saving (meeting room schedule display, IOT display..) so we decided to use a more generic trade mark.
We agreed on Displ’Ever. This is evocating a Display that should be simultaneously Clever and that works for Ever.
A logo has been designed that has two harrows evocating the energy consumed and the energy produced for running for ever.
This Displ’Ever trade mark has been registered in France before being extended to other countries. The ownership is shared between SMEs.
Respective templates for slides and other communication ways had been provided to build a structured Identity.
Partners have set a Displ’Ever communication KIT in addition to the Disp’Ever web site (www.displ-ever.com).
Partners have successfully launched the Disp’Ever at the CES in Las Vegas in January 2016 with a press relies campaign. We were 13 samples available for the show on display on 3 booths:
• One on the EnOcean alliance booth
• One on the UBIANT booth
• 10 on the Displ’Ever booth (8 externally oriented and 4 internally, back to back)
• One backup usually in recharge
A movie was displayed in the booth (available on YouTube and on the web site) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGPXfuIzWXE
We got a lot of articles in the press worldwide.
This has been followed by the Light & building show in Frankfurt. The booking of a booth was made by Eelectron. A space on the Eelectron booth was reserved for FEROP. This last show was fully dedicated to building automation and visitors were very enthusiast to see the product. A total of more than 3 thousand leaflets have been distributed or picked up by visitors.
leads
Leads have been collected by the coordinator during the CES and L&B shows.
Request via the web site are also collected by the coordinator.
When the product will be commercially available, the leads will be contacted by order of priority and this activity will be shared among partners.
During the CES show we had request for many other applications like:
• Aircraft refurbishing
• Street advertising
• Train
• Meeting rooms schedule
• Dynamic Fire evacuation map
• Metering display
• Digital key pad for alarms
• Solar price tag
• ...
Application during L&B show were mainly on building automation because the show itself is totally oriented in this way.
-Exploitation of results-
Behind the product resulting of the project there are many foregrounds that have been contributing to the product.
Developing an energy harvesting product like the Displ’Ever requires using different optimized technologies to balance energy consumption and energy production and storage.
The list of the following foregrounds has been the key of the accomplishment:
• Long lifespan energy storage
• Efficient energy conversion
• Very Low energy consumption
• Use of EnOcean radio stack
• Use of Smart Ack technology
• Use of Micro EJ java platform
• Use of NFC technology
• Combining antenna and EPD
Foreground Exploitation
Beside the FEROP product and derivate products that may be developed in the future, SMEs plan to use the above foregrounds in other projects.
As the building retrofit market will increase to reduce energy consumptions, wireless technology will become a key to access to this market especially the battery life span duration. With the ability of 10 years lifespan technology developed in the frame of the FEROP project, SMEs will have a great advantage in term of quality and performances.
The use of the EnOcean Radio stack can make products a lot more competitive by reducing the BOM of at least 10€. The use of NFC can also provide a great advantage during commissioning.
List of Websites:
The project web site is www.ferop.eu/
The commercial web site is www.displ-ever.com
Contact are on line in the web site.
In accordance with the Europe 2020 triple-20 objectives and the directive 2010/31/EU, all new buildings shall be nearly zero-energy consumption by December, 31st 2020. New buildings occupied and owned by public authorities shall comply with the same criteria by December, 31st 2018. The Commission encourages increasing the numbers of this type of building by putting in place national plans, which include:
• the Member State’s application in practice of the definition of nearly zero-energy buildings;
• the intermediate targets for improving the energy performance of new buildings by 2015;
• Information on the policies and financial measures adopted to encourage improvements in energy performance of buildings.
With its Flat EnOcean Room Operating Panel, the FEROP project contributes to meeting these “green” European objectives insofar as it allows making users sensitive to energy consumption and energy saving. The objective of such a system is to provide the users with the exact view of their consumption inside each room, but also to set temperature, air quality and other comfort parameters by interacting with the home automation system. Using FEROP (commercial name Displ’Ever) system linked to a home automation system, the users will be aware of the energy impact and associated cost of each setting he may choose in each room. For instance, he may warm the bathroom during a pre-programmed time or recorded occupancies habits during the week to comply with his own schedule and appreciate the money saving. In addition to good insulation and air proofing, smart air renewal strategies, automatic light dimming and shut down and economic mode for heater and coolers can allow the user to save up to 30% plus an extra 16% through an adequate behavior. The Displ’Ever will address the 16% saving from behavior.
Such kind of information requires energy metering and data transfer up to the display. The most convenient way to consolidate such data is the EnOcean wireless standard. The latter, designed by the German SME EnOcean GmbH, is the core technology of the project. EnOcean GmbH has indeed proposed a system relying on Energy harvesting Wireless Technology. It is composed of wireless sensor solutions for use in buildings and industrial installations.
EnOcean modules combine micro-energy converters with ultra-low power electronics and reliable wireless communications. This system enables wireless communications between batteryless wireless sensors, switches, controllers and gateways. In April 2012, the EnOcean wireless standard was ratified as the international standard ISO/IEC 14543-3-10, which is optimized for wireless solutions with ultra-low power consumption and energy harvesting. The standard covers the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) layers 1-3 which are the physical, data link and networking layers.
Thanks to the Displ’Ever system, EnOcean customers must be able to create self-powered wireless sensor solutions for efficient energy management in buildings and other industrial applications. But the Displ’Ever is not only an EnOcean compliant design it includes a growth potential for emerging low energy communication like ZigBee green, Bluetooth Low energy and Thread (based on universal 2.4Ghz 6LoWPAN and supported by Google). To be noted than ZigBee, EnOcean and Zwave alliances announced, they will be the application layer of Thread. It will also be an open platform providing the opportunity to OEM customer, SME and individuals to develop new applications.
The efficiency of amorphous cells is overpassing DSC (Die Sensitive Cell) efficiency for a lot cheaper and thinner design so first in class Amorphous PV has been selected.
The need for an open platform has been addressed and the technical solution is based on an embedded light Java engine called Micro EJ. This allows developers to provide applications running on Java and easily developed on a PC thank to a SDK (software Development Kit). The firmware update is based on NFC as most of smartphones now have NFC including the last apple phones. This allows users to easily download applications and install them on the Displ’Ever.
The theoretical balancing between energy consumption, generation and storage has been achieved after a lot of efforts.
So, with the new ability to comply with all existing low energy radio protocols including the emerging IOT and by providing an open platform able to run Java applications, the Displ’Ever should become a universal room operating panel platform for wireless building automation.
The opening to IOT should also extend the market size.
Project Context and Objectives:
Objective 1. Comfort setting with Energy consumption impacts
Description
This device had to allow user to perform:
• Temperature setting in a room with associated predictive cost impact;
• Air quality setting in a room with associated predictive cost impact;
• Eventually lighting and or blinds setting with associated predictive cost impact;
Indicator
Friendly display of cost impact. Compared with current state of the art, such features only exist in automotive. Global design used in automotive has been translated to building management in order to be familiar to customers. Despite the fact that automotive relies on autonomy or liter of gasoline per kilometre. The results has been analysed in the end user analysis of WP7.
Result
At the end of the project, we provided 10 functional prototypes as a proof of concept of the feasibility of the product. A part of a work package was also dedicated to experimentations by end-users to get their feedback on the product.
At the end of WP7, this objective has been reached.
Linked results
D6.4
Objective 2. Make the user sensitive to sustainable issues
Description
This objective was to improve user behaviour by providing a system able to display effective energy consumption in real time and predictive financial impact related to comfort settings.
Based on the provided information by the system, users should improve their behaviour to optimize energy consumption.
Indicator
The most important indicator of this objective is the usage of the device. In real conditions, it was planned to have a 80% ratio use. This indicator gives a feedback about the potential behaviour improvement.
Result
During the specification phase, an MBI simulator has been tested by a sample group (worldwide with different culture) of users and comments taken into account. Different updates have need released (latest been version 6) and can be seen on http://uint.fr/Ferop/v6/. At the end of the project, another sample group of users have been asked to test the device for 3 months.
At the end of WP7, this objective has been reached.
Objective 3. Link the device to a home automation system
Description
This objective was to integrate Displ’Ever devices into ecosystems to demonstrate ability to communicate with home and building automation environment. Displ’Ever simplify the current process of controlling energy impact and associated costs inside rooms/buildings. Users can be pro-active and be able to set temperature and air quality according to occupancies, unoccupancies, night, vacation.
Indicator
Displ’Ever device is integrated into ecosystem and functional. All functionalities have been be validated, especially Smart Ack.
Result
At the end of WP7, this objective has been reached.
Linked results
Consortium links with home automation actors.
Objective 4: Touch screen layer is compatible with the 6 other layers
Description
The objective was to design a sensitive touch screen that could be compatible with the different layers without disturbing the way they operate.
Indicator
The control through the touch screen should be user friendly and as fast as it can be with electronic paper display. This performance should be performed homogenously on the whole surface screen. Reliability of the response to an action shall be over 99%.
Result
As capacitive touch screen compatibility with radio emission has been proven for mobile phone and tablets, the objective has reached in M10 during the touch screen management test report. The sensitivity of the touch screen has required removing the air between the PV cell window and the touch screen layer by the use of special glue like in tablets. It makes the device impossible to repair but there were no alternative.
Linked results
The compatibility of the different layers has required moving the sub 1Ghz antenna from the back of the display and touch screen to the side of the product.
Objective 5: Realisation of the electronic circuit
Description
The electronic circuit to be designed had to be very thin, and have extremely low consumption for energy harvesting compatibility.
Care has been taken to design antenna and RF part in order to make them work with the others layers (the PV being a real shielding).
Indicator
Radio communication range and pattern (30m indoor through a wall). Thickness of the final assembly (objective <2.5mm). Autonomy (3 days in darkness after being exposed at 200 lux during 8 hours).
Result
At the end of the project, when the hardware has been validated, the Firmware has been finalized after being tested.
At the end of WP7, Most of objectives have been reached. The only deviation is the thickness with 3.5mm instead of 2.5mm.
The radio communication has shown 30% better range performance than expected.
Linked results
Validation of both software and hardware aspects.
Project Results:
The FEROP project has been a real challenge in many aspects
The main challenges were:
• Powering the device by energy harvesting (ambient light)
• Developing the EnOcean radio stack
• Providing growth potential for other radio communication
• Developing a friendly and intuitive man machine interface
• Developing a universal platform for user and OEM to develop and upload application
We will detail here after each challenge results and associated foreground
-Powering by energy harvesting-
This challenge implies to balance energy generation and energy consumption. In addition energy storage for running during night time is also a tremendous challenge as we decided to follow Building automation requirements from KNX standard ie 10 years life span.
Minimising energy consumption has been performed by:
• Selecting low quiescent current component, low energy running consumption components and especially MCU. The first low consumption MCU generation STM31L1 was running at 30 MHz but the de-ghosting of the EPD was too slow and not acceptable between 2 pictures. Fortunately the STM31 L4 (L like low energy) has ben released mid 2015 allowing running at 80 MHz. At this speed the de-ghosting became acceptable. This is the only low energy MCU running at such speed on the market in 2016 and we have been lucky that it became available for our project.
• Defining functioning modes with sleeping modes and short wake up time (no display refresh of EPD at night as it is not visible but an immediate refresh when the light comes back)
• Use of new memory technology called FRAM (Fero Magnetic RAM) instead of SRAM to keep data between 2 wake ups (reducing quiescent current from 20uA to less than 1uA)
• Use of Electronic Paper Display for the screen. After evaluating low consumption bi stable LCD we concluded that EPD was the only solution. Beside we evaluated an alternative EPD maker from China (lower cost) but the energy consumption was about twice of the original from EInk.
• The touch screen could not stay active all the time because of the consumption and we had to implement a hand approach detection to wake up the touch screen. Many attempts have been made for using the PV as a sensor but we found out the voltage was to changing when pooling the current to charge the system. Even by detecting the current change, the results have shown not being reliable enough. We finally selected a special system with IR transmitting LED and detecting hand by reflexion. This sensor has hopefully a reasonable consumption and perform the Lux measurement too.
Harvesting energy and energy storage has been performed by:
• Designing a custom PV with a transparent widow in the middle and efficiency better than 5µw/cm2. Many vendors have been evaluated. The vendor selected has to push the technology to the limit in order to reach such efficiency and manufacturing require performing ranking (lost around 20%)
• Using MPPT to improve efficiency of the PV (pulling current form the PV in order to reach about 75% of the open voltage in ore to get the maximum power of IxV). Various MMPT circuit have been evaluated and the selected one from AD has the lowest quiescent current.
• Designing a special circuitry to limit the stress of the Lithium Ion batteries generally limited to 500 charging cycles. First we used 2 batteries. One is used by the system when the other one is changing. This divides the number of changing cycle by 2. In addition when using the battery at 10% to 20% of the total capacity it extends the number of cycle tremendously. Therefore we used overdesigned batteries and used gauges to make sure to stop charging or discharging when overpassing the 10% centred in the middle of the capacity. In addition high current pics are also stressing the battery and reduce the lifespan. As the EPD de-ghost and refresh require the maximum of the current of the system, we used a super capacitor of about 1Farad. This super cap is slowly charged by the PV and or the battery during the sleeping times of the product. The advantage is also that if the battery is already full (55% of C), the extra energy goes into the cap and is not lost. This also allow a rapid wake up after a long storage as the PV will only start recharging the battery if there is extra energy after having filled the cap. This system may probably not be patented but we will keep it secret among partners as we can use it for other projects. NanoSense is already designing an autonomous Indoor air Quality probe derived from this foreground. We found a revolutionary Super cap technology during the CES in Las Vegas. This new technology allows very low current leakages (usually 1µA per farad) and very low impedance in a flat design.
-Developing the EnOcean radio stack-
EnOcean radio modules made by EnOcean GmbH are expensive and don’t fit in our thin design (thickness of the module is too big) so we had to develop the radio stack and find the appropriated transceiver. The original module use an ASIC and the challenge have been to find an off the shelve transceiver.
• Transceiver selection: a dozen of transceivers have been evaluated. The difficulty comes from the fact that the synchronisation is made on only 4 bits! Real time data processing for synchronisation form the MCU has proven not being reliable enough (50% max). The solution has been to collect of the received data in an embedded into the transceiver FIFO and to identify the synchronisation not in real time. The only transceiver on the market able to perform such process has been the Spirit1 from ST. When the FIFO reach 50%, the MCU read it and try to find the synchro then analyse the message following the synchro. As the paid load or even the synchro can be splitted on 2 different FIFO reading, we gad to manage this split. The stack also implements the 902 Mhz for the US market using the same principle event is this standard requires a synchro on 8 bits (much more easier)
• This stack was already a background from NanoSense developed on a Swiss transceiver now purchased by On Semi and offering EnOcean module alternative (probably based on the NanoSense stack provided to them during the development).
• ESP3: On top of the stack a protocol called ESP3 and used on EnOcean modules has been developed in order to allow easy integration and interface with the stack. This part of the stack is a foreground
-Providing growth potential for other radio communication-
The challenge has been to find a low energy 2.4Ghz transceiver already running Bluetooth Low energy and able to run Thread in a new future. We first used a Texas Instrument transceiver but when Thread appears as TI was not involved in the Thread Alliance and was not offering a stack in a near future, we finally switched to the EFR 32 from Silicon lab. The Thread stack is already available for the EFR 32 as well as a good BLE stack since Silab purchased in 2015 a well know BLE stack developer (using initially TI transceiver in their modules). The BLE and Thread stacks are stored into the MCU of the EFR 32 transceiver and can be activated one or another via a simple flag. The BLE stack 4.0 then 4.1 and 4.2 and now 5 can be uploaded into the transceiver via NFC.
-Developing a friendly and intuitive man machine interface-
The friendly and intuitive man machine interface has been developed thanks to:
• The use fs a web MMI simulator having the response time of an EPD for the de-ghosting (http://uint.fr/Ferop/v6)
• The inputs from the different partners
-Developing a universal platform for user and OEM to develop and upload application-
The universal platform has been developed thanks to:
• The use of Micro EJ platform especially adapted to the management of an EPD (for the first time) allowing easy development of java application with graphical user interface (GUI). This platform developed by a French SME called IS2T also allow the use of a SDK (Software Development Kit) for OEM or anyone who wants to develop his own application.
• The use of Java Applets as application software module like in smartphone (Apps)
• The use of NCF to upload on a smartphone or tablet then to download on the FEROP. NFC can be used to update the entire system firmware of Applets.
Potential Impact:
-Potential impact-
Energy saving of buildings can be split as follow
• 50% envelope insulation (passive)
• 34% active control (Building automation)
• 16% human eco behavior (set points, wearing...)
For years, fiscal incentives in Europe have promoted envelope insulation including change for double glazed windows and air proofing. Building automation is becoming popular, affordable and standardized. Some regulations across Europe are promoting energy consumption display in an attempts to improve human behavior.
The Displ’Ever can do a lot more than just displaying passed consumption, it performs energy consumption forecast computation based on T° setpoint, IAQ set point, light dimming level... and passed consumption. The big advantage is that each time a user will change a set point, the energy consumption forecast displayed for one day, one week, one month or even one year will help having a greener behavior.
The principle of the forecast energy consumption used in Dislp’Ever is inspired from modern automotive display. Automotive industry has started reducing gasoline consumption since a long time before politics started wishing to reduce building energy consumption in new and even in ancient buildings
In order to reach the maximum potential saving of 16%, displaying the past consumption is not enough as this energy is already burned and users have no idea on what they should act and behave.
The Displ’Ever is the today most comprehensive energy saving device using forecast energy consumption feature. We can estimate that the theoretical 16% saving can be reach thanks to Displ’Ever.
With a market forecast of 100 000 pieces per year in Europe, it would represent 1 million pieces in 10 years.
If we consider the worth case of 100% being installed in housing (Lower consumption than for office buildings), the average energy consumption can be estimated as follow:
The fuel consumption in Europe for premises heating represent an annual expense of 50 Billion Euros. The fuel represent only 21% of heaters of European premises. Nevertheless the market is balanced between fuel, gas, coal and electricity depending of countries (France having the largest electric heater market of Europe thanks to its low cost nuclear electricity but this is a special case).
If we make the assumption that the price of energy is about the same for fuel, gas or electricity for the same energy delivered because of the competition, the total budget for premises heating can be estimated to about 250 billion (based on 50 Billion for 21%).
There are around 190 Million of houses of flats in Europe (Source Eurostat 2014) so the average energy consumption budget is 250 Billion € / 190 Million = 1315 € par premise and per year.
With a 16% saving for 1 million premises equipped with the Displ’Ever, it represent a total saving of 1.3 Billion of Euros per year.
When considering the CO2 footprint, it represents the following:
10 CBM of fuel cost around 5 700€
10 CBM of fuel generate 26.2 tons of C02
So 1.3 billion € of fuel saving represent 6 million tons of CO2 saving per year
This assumption in made with fuel but it would be about the same with gas and electricity when generated with fuel. Only electricity from nuclear plants, win turbines and hydraulic would moderate this result but not more than about 10%.
As a result we can estimate the Displ’Ever to save up to 5.4 Million tons of CO2 emission each year after 10 years for a hypothesis of 100K pieces sold each year.
-Dissemination activities-
In order to be recognizable, FEROP needed a trade mark. After many brain storming partners agreed on Energy SAV’R
This first trade mark has been registered. On the way, we found out there were many other applications than a ROP for energy saving (meeting room schedule display, IOT display..) so we decided to use a more generic trade mark.
We agreed on Displ’Ever. This is evocating a Display that should be simultaneously Clever and that works for Ever.
A logo has been designed that has two harrows evocating the energy consumed and the energy produced for running for ever.
This Displ’Ever trade mark has been registered in France before being extended to other countries. The ownership is shared between SMEs.
Respective templates for slides and other communication ways had been provided to build a structured Identity.
Partners have set a Displ’Ever communication KIT in addition to the Disp’Ever web site (www.displ-ever.com).
Partners have successfully launched the Disp’Ever at the CES in Las Vegas in January 2016 with a press relies campaign. We were 13 samples available for the show on display on 3 booths:
• One on the EnOcean alliance booth
• One on the UBIANT booth
• 10 on the Displ’Ever booth (8 externally oriented and 4 internally, back to back)
• One backup usually in recharge
A movie was displayed in the booth (available on YouTube and on the web site) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGPXfuIzWXE
We got a lot of articles in the press worldwide.
This has been followed by the Light & building show in Frankfurt. The booking of a booth was made by Eelectron. A space on the Eelectron booth was reserved for FEROP. This last show was fully dedicated to building automation and visitors were very enthusiast to see the product. A total of more than 3 thousand leaflets have been distributed or picked up by visitors.
leads
Leads have been collected by the coordinator during the CES and L&B shows.
Request via the web site are also collected by the coordinator.
When the product will be commercially available, the leads will be contacted by order of priority and this activity will be shared among partners.
During the CES show we had request for many other applications like:
• Aircraft refurbishing
• Street advertising
• Train
• Meeting rooms schedule
• Dynamic Fire evacuation map
• Metering display
• Digital key pad for alarms
• Solar price tag
• ...
Application during L&B show were mainly on building automation because the show itself is totally oriented in this way.
-Exploitation of results-
Behind the product resulting of the project there are many foregrounds that have been contributing to the product.
Developing an energy harvesting product like the Displ’Ever requires using different optimized technologies to balance energy consumption and energy production and storage.
The list of the following foregrounds has been the key of the accomplishment:
• Long lifespan energy storage
• Efficient energy conversion
• Very Low energy consumption
• Use of EnOcean radio stack
• Use of Smart Ack technology
• Use of Micro EJ java platform
• Use of NFC technology
• Combining antenna and EPD
Foreground Exploitation
Beside the FEROP product and derivate products that may be developed in the future, SMEs plan to use the above foregrounds in other projects.
As the building retrofit market will increase to reduce energy consumptions, wireless technology will become a key to access to this market especially the battery life span duration. With the ability of 10 years lifespan technology developed in the frame of the FEROP project, SMEs will have a great advantage in term of quality and performances.
The use of the EnOcean Radio stack can make products a lot more competitive by reducing the BOM of at least 10€. The use of NFC can also provide a great advantage during commissioning.
List of Websites:
The project web site is www.ferop.eu/
The commercial web site is www.displ-ever.com
Contact are on line in the web site.
