European Infrastructure Powering the Internet of Things

Project Information

EnABLES

Grant agreement ID: 730957

DOI

10.3030/730957

Project closed

EC signature date 11 December 2017

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 30 June 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 5 214 731,25

EU contribution

€ 5 213 481,25

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK - NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EnABLES (European Infrastructure Powering the Internet of Things)

Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

By 2025 the world will have 1 trillion IoT (internet of things) sensors, most of which will be wireless IoT edge devices. IoT brings unprecedented opportunities and potentially will enhance all our lives putting sensors everywhere (on, in and near equipment, infrastructure, people, environment) to make the world a better, safer, more secure, reliable, environmentally aware and efficient place. However it also bring unprecedented problems if battery life is limited.

EnABLES helps users understand how ‘battery life’ can be extended to outlive the operational life of the device it powers by finding ways to minimize device power consumption where possible using ambient energies. This encompasses:- energy harvesting, energy storage, micro-power management and their system integration. Another key element is getting developers & users of these technologies to come together as an ecosystem and ensure technology components are standardized, inter-operable and system optimized.

EnABLES offers a ‘transnational access’ (TA) program opening up €2Bn of key research infrastructure and a pool of >130 researchers to academia and industry to do ‘power IoT’ feasibility studies coupled with a joint research activity (JRA) portfolio (collaborative projects between the 11 project partners) demonstrating the impact of collaboration and developing application driven ‘power IoT’ solutions for the future.

The consortium comprises 6 research & technology centres (Tyndall, CEA-Leti, CEA-Liten, FhG-IIS, FhG-IMS and Imec-NL) that provide the TA offering. JRAs focus on developing the necessary tools, protocols, libraries and databases as well as advancing the state-of-the-art of prototype platforms, test structures, simulation models and tools. The consortium also incorporates knowledge hubs of excellence (KIT/HIU, U-Southampton, U-Perugia, U-Bologna, POLITO) who (along with the research and technology centres) are responsible for the JRAs delivering frontier research across various disciplines e.g. materials science, modelling & simulation, fabrication, device engineering, metrology, characterisation, circuit design and system integration. The EnABLES Virtual Access offering leverages the Real Vibrations Database & Energy Harvesting Network Data Repository provided resp. by Knowledge Hubs U-Perugia and U-Southampton to help people how much energy can be extracted from various ambient energies.

The ultimate aim of EnABLES is to build the ecosystem descried, show the benefits and impact with a supporting access infrastructure and make it sustainable beyond the life of the project.

EnABLES has been extremely successful:-

We now have 557 stakeholders from 46 countries. 171 TA enquiries were funded and 37 VAs made available. 86 publications and 16 webinars were created. Many have resulted in follow on projects and collaboration funded by the EU national government and industry. Testimonials and impact assessment on our TA & JRA activities can be found in our position paper and website.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

EnABLES has already made significant progress in the 1st reporting period in building a ‘power IoT’ starting community. The 6 research institutes have opened their doors offering free access to their expertise and infrastructure to do feasibility studies seeding and accelerating the development of solutions to extend battery life of wireless IoT edge devices, ideally making them outlive the devices they power. These institutes along with the 5 knowledge hubs have worked closely together to map out a series of JRAs (Joint Research Activities) to develop the TA (Transnational Access) offerings of the future, focusing on system optimisation based on real life applications, standardisation and inter-operability. A major element of the 1st period activity has been in setting up the website and other social media channels to explain the EnABLES concept, vision and potential impact and to set up the infrastructure for physical and virtual access (VA).

Good progress has been made relative to the project KPIs with over 235 stakeholders (206 from the EU) already subscribed from 26 countries and 35 Transnational Access (TA) requests received, 16 of which have been funded and started (& 7 more in the review funnel). An Industry Innovation Committee (IIC) with leading industry names (Analog Devices, UTRC, Perpetuum, ST, RGS, Varta) has been set up to guide EnABLES along with a Research User Group (RUG) that undertakes peer reviews of EnABLES TA proposals. Dissemination activities are also on track with EnABLES clearly positioning itself as a leading light in developing and accelerating Power IoT solutions via events such as EnerHarv, SSI and IDTechEx. Reaction to EnABLES has been extremely positive not only forming a structure and cohesion to existing power IoT research by academia and industry but also bringing many other stakeholders to the ecosystem. This is a critical step in order for energy harvesting and related technologies (micro power management and storage) to be successfully and optimally system integrated and finding their way to commercialisation.

By the end of P3 we have an impressive set of results:-

Members: 557 members from 46 countries.
Technical enquiries: 179 enquiries from 36 countries.
Virtual Access: 37 VA projects from 17 countries.
Transnational Access Projects: 71 TA projects from 21 countries.
Sectors: 71 TAs: 35 SME, 17 Large Companies, 12 University/Academic, 7 Research Institutes
International events attended (physically or virtually) to promote EnABLES: 104.
Summer schools: 4
Webinars:16
Publications: 86
Position papers:1
Testimonials >20 (and increasing)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The Transnational Access and Virtual Access offerings comprise outputs from world leading research in 'power IoT' form the EnABLES partners. These are used in turn as building blocks to progress the state of the art via the free of charge feasibility studies (TA & VA) that EnABLES seed funds and progresses the integration of these technologies in the use cases for both academic and industry researchers. The JRAs will comprise future TA offerings and entail collaborations between the project partners in developing the necessary tools, protocols, libraries and databases as well as advancing the state-of-the-art of prototype platforms, test structures, simulation models and tools. As an example EnABLES has published deliverable 5.1 that provides a series of standard templates for characterizing parts that will in future enable 'apples versus apples' comparisons as well as drive the standardization and inter-operability of parts, thereby enhancing their scope for system integration.

Much of the 1st reporting period has been consumed in setting up the TA & VA offerings and initial results from the 1st funded projects are starting to appear now. Later in the project as the outputs of the TA programs become published the net impact of these activities will become more evident.

The position paper is an excellent summary of progress beyond state of the art and also gives great examples of impact via testimonials, ref. https://www.enables-project.eu/outputs/position-paper/ Further details on research excellence can be found in deliverables D5.5 & 5.6 and additional testimonials have been added to the website.https://www.enables-project.eu/stories/. the webinar also comprise a health mix of research excellent and use case stores, all of which can be found here:- https://www.enables-project.eu/webinars/

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