Chicago, IL - AdaptivEnergy's CEO Jim Vogeley presented application solutions using the Joule-Thief™ Random Vibration Energy Harvesting Technology at Sensors Expo and Conference (Symposium 1: Energy Harvesting for Powering Sensor Applications). AdaptivEnergy also showcased its technology platforms in booth 931 in the Energy Harvesting Pavilion.

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Gaithersburg, MD - AdaptivEnergy showcased the latest Joule-Thief™ energy harvesting technology products at Texas Intruments' TI Tech Days. One new addition is the Random Vibration Joule-Thief™, which can harvest ambient mechancial energy with barely susceptible vibrations and provides usable power for low power devices.

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Santa Clara, CA - Jim Vogley, CEO of AdaptivEnergy presented Energy Harvesting Powered Wireless Sensor Node and Asset Tracking Solutions in Random Vibration Environments in the Sessions 4: Systems and Applications at nanoPower Forum 2009.

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Hannover, Germany - AdaptivEnergy exhibits in Parker Hannifin’s Hall 23, Stand No. A50 demonstrating the Joule-Thief™ energy harvesting technology at Hannover Messe Fair. AdaptivEnergy is a Parker Technology Development partner.
http://www.hannovermesse.de/homepage_e

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Patrick Mannion
EE Times
(12/15/2008 12:01 AM EST)

For many, the concept of energy harvesting is tightly associated with the 'green' movement. While that's certainly one aspect, it overlooks a whole range of applications that have less to do with solving the world's so-called energy crisis and more to do with solving the problem of powering remote or embedded devices -- indefinitely. That is, without wires and without potentially expensive battery replacement.

Also called energy scavenging, energy harvesting uses piezoelectric, photovoltaic, thermoelectric and inductive devices to convert ambient energy (kinetic, light and thermal) into electrical energy. This energy can then be stored locally to power 'perpetual' devices, usually sensors or other monitoring and control devices with a wireless communications interface. It's this storage that dispels another misconception: that harvested energy is too little to be of practical use. In almost all applications, it's the timed use of accumulated energy that makes the devices practical.

The concept of energy harvesting is clearly not new; the most obvious instantiation is solar-powered cameras used on highways. (For a list of energy-harvesting companies involved in the area, go to www.energyharvesting.net.) However, what is new are the increasingly efficient conversion and power-management ICs, innovative power storage techniques and the availability of low-cost, low-power ICs that are combining to enable greater functionality per millijoule of generated energy.

This has opened up a whole range of truly tether-free applications from wireless sensor networks for structural monitoring of buildings and bridges to battlefield sensors, backpack power generators and communicators, devices embedded within airplane wings and other hard-to-access locations.

In the consumer space, medical applications that take advantage of thermal and kinetic energy are an exciting area of development, while solar-powered Bluetooth headsets and cell-phone chargers are already plentiful. Meanwhile, 'green' automotive designers are looking at perpetual devices to reduce the amount of expensive and weighty harnessing required.

For 2009, consumers can expect a flotilla of devices, particularly in the medical field, as companies such as Texas Instruments Inc. continue seeding the market with kits that combine its low-power MSP430 microcontroller with conversion technologies from the likes of AdaptivEnergy LLC and Perpetuum Ltd., as well as innovative battery technology from Cymbet Corp. Other IC companies also improving the state of the art here include National Semiconductor, International Rectifier and Linear Technology.

However, for designers, the space is rife with opportunities. More research is need for ultra-low-power conversion and power management circuits. Power storage techniques may include ultracapacitors and novel battery chemistries. As innovations are made in those fundamental areas, the system applications for energy-harvesting devices are set to rise exponentially over the coming months.

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HAMPTON, Virginia – December 3, 2008 – AdaptivEnergy has successfully doubled the power output of the Joule-Thief™ Energy Harvesting Power Generator.

The performance increase was the result of ongoing development of AdaptivEnergy's unique stress biased RLP® technology to achieve significantly greater stress in the core piezoceramic material. For a given input the ability to increase the stress in the piezoceramic produces a far greater power output over competitive piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.

AdaptivEnergy’s continual improvement in ambient power conversion is successfully broadening the range and usefulness of vibration energy harvesting technology.

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The last time I really got my hands dirty playing with a piezoelectric transducer was for a small control system I designed back in college. That was a generic device that was more or less plug-and-go, so I can't recall much about it. However, given the recent uptick in interest in energy-harvesting technology as a possible solution to powering remote and embedded devices, I figured it was time to take a closer look at piezoelectric (PE) transducers and their related electronics to see how far they'd come. So, I got hold of the Joule-Thief demonstration kit from AdaptivEnergy, performed an exam, and was blown away.

click here to read the full EE Times article

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Energy harvesting has been steadily gaining interest in the technology sector, but without useful applications it will remain just an intellectual curiosity. The continuously decreasing power requirements of electronics, however, have increased the number of applications for which this technology can be used effectively. One such application is the wireless sensor system.

click here to read the full Sensors Magazine article

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The BBC World News team reviews the latest gadgets and major technology news. This week they reported on the history and future of the microchip, where reducing power consumption while increasing performance is driving the industry. This video shows how Texas Instruments' MSP430 ultra-low power microcontroller is powered solely by AdaptivEnergy's Joule-Thief™ Module for a remote wireless sensing solution.

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AdaptivEnergy's Joule-Thief™ energy harvesting module produces the highest output per unit weight AND per unit volume of any energy harvester available today. Built on AdaptivEnergy's Powered by RLP™ technology platform, this kit demonstrates battery-less wireless transmission using TI's ultra-low power MSP430 microcontroller. In stock; $699 per kit. View Product Brief

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DALLAS (June 9, 2008) - Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced a breakthrough generation of ultra-low power MSP430 microcontrollers (MCU), offering the industry's lowest power consumption for devices that can provide up to 25 MHz peak performance, increased Flash and RAM memory and integrated peripherals such as radio frequency (RF), USB, encryption and LCD interfaces. With as low as 160 uA/MHz (microamp per megahertz) active power consumption and 1.5 uA in standby, MSP430F5xx MCUs enable longer battery life and the ability to use smaller batteries for portable applications, or no batteries at all for energy harvesting systems that run off of solar power, vibration energy or human body temperature. For more information, please visit: www.ti.com/5xx.

TI customer, Jim Vogeley, CEO, AdaptivEnergy, explains that their product, the Joule-ThiefTM energy harvester, "collects and stores electrical energy from tiny mechanical vibrations and then uses this harvested energy to power a small, low-power MSP430 MCU. The MCU helps enable a compact RF sensor design to implement ambient intelligence that can detect and report critical conditions in factories, automobiles, offices, homes and other environments, all without wiring or batteries."

Increased memory and integrated peripherals like RF, USB, encryption and LCD interfaces allow designers to add functionally needed to advance fields like personal medical, home automation, human interface control, automated meter reading (AMR), portable instrumentation, sensors, consumer electronics and security. Development tools, collateral, third-party support, training and university programs facilitate ease of use and shorten time to market.

"The conflicting demands of increased performance, functionality and energy efficiency are the biggest challenges facing the industry today," notes Max Baron, principal analyst, In-Stat. "As designers strive to do more with less, the new MSP430F5xx MCU generation will help reduce the power consumed by existing applications while enabling new designs requiring very low power."

More than 50 percent more performance for ultra-low power
With more than 50 percent more processing performance and double the Flash and RAM memory of previous 1xx, 2xx or 4xx generations, F5xx devices help systems perform demanding tasks while operating from very limited power sources. Designers can tap into peak execution performance of up to 25 MHz while consuming as low as 160uA/MHz (microamp per megahertz). A wake up time of less than 5 microseconds with full status retention from both standby and sleep modes provides full performance on demand and instant reaction to events like external interrupts. Multi-channel direct memory access (DMA) permits data exchange with peripherals while the core remains in low-power modes. The industry's highest code density among comparable devices maximizes performance while minimizing memory and power requirements.

A true 32-bit real-time clock (RTC) with an alarm requires just 1.5 uA of standby current, enabling batteries to operate without servicing for 20 years or longer. Extended battery life is critical for customers in the electric, gas and water metering infrastructure industry that save significant time and money by replacing batteries used in their metering systems less frequently. A new, cutting-edge power management module (PMM) offers flexibility to choose the optimum core voltage dynamically for lowest power vs. performance requirements while enabling accurate power on reset and supply voltage supervision with monitoring. A unified clock system (UCS) offers a selection of clocks to achieve the right mix of power and precision, including an option for operation without a crystal.

Integrated peripherals give designers more options
Intelligent, high-performance digital and analog peripherals consume no power when not in operation, and future F5xx devices will include peripherals such as RF, USB, encryption and LCD interfaces. A new high-resolution timer will offer advanced processing capabilities to enable applications like voice-activated home security systems. Up to one megabyte (MB) of linear memory mapping enables robust user interfaces, as well as applications for ZigBee® and other low-power RF sensor networks. F54xx devices offer up to 16 kilobytes of RAM and up to 256 KB Flash, doubling Flash and RAM available on previous MSP430F2xx, F1xx and F4xx devices. The new devices offer read/erase/write capability down to 1.8 V; for applications based on two AAA batteries, Flash write is possible down to the battery end of life voltage of 0.9 V for each battery.

Support, availability and pricing
The MSP430F5xx generation is 100 percent instruction set-compatible with earlier-generation MSP430 devices, making upgrades easy and allowing choices from the entire portfolio for applications. Supporting tools; extensive training, third party and university support; and comprehensive documentation, code examples and libraries help designers get to market quickly. MSP430F5438IPZ devices are sampling now and MSP430F5437IPN, F5436IPZ, F5435IPN, F5419IPZ and F5418IPN will be released in August 2008, with additional F5xx introductions scheduled for the coming months. Package options include both 80- and 100-pin thin quad flatpacks (TQFPs), the latter with additional general-purpose I/Os. Pricing at 1ku quantities is listed in the chart below; additionally, F5418IPN devices will be priced

TI enables innovation with broad range of controllers
From ultra-low-power 16-bit MCUs in the MSP430 platform, industry standard 32-bit MCUs and the high performance TMS320C2000TM digital signal 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 www.ti.com/mcu.

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AdaptivEnergy RLP® test bed achieves 1 Billion Cycles!  RLPs® under test still looks like the day they first became RLPs®. 

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AdaptivEnergy to debut Joule-Thief™ Energy Harvesting device at Sensors Expo & Conference, June 9-11, 2008 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL.

AdaptivEnergy Joule-Thief™ Energy Harvester offers the highest power output per unit weight and volume of any commercially available Energy Harvesting Device (EHD) enabling battery-free applications. Joule-Thief™ Energy Harvester coupled with low powered electronic components and proprietary circuitry provides very high energy collection efficiency. Collection electronics an collect energy over extended time periods to accumulate usable energy from extremely low vibration amplitudes. Joule-Thief™ is ideal for wireless sensing applications. Demonstrations available in Booth 934 AdaptivEnergy’s Joule-Thief™ in action.

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Richard McKee brings 25 years of professional sales experience to AdaptivEnergy. Richard's vast knowledge of varying technologies and industries presented him to be a perfect match for the position. Richard will establish sales strategies to meet the organizational objectives, sell AdaptivEnergy's “Powered by RLP™” branded products, and educate the market place on RLP® products, markets and technology.

"Richard is very customer centric and focused on building relationships which is important to a company introducing a break through technology. These situations not only include simple sales but product development opportunities as well, notes Jim Vogeley, CEO."

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Richmond, VA - AdaptivEnergy is selected as one of the Virginia Growth Companies for 2008 as selected by the Virginia Capital Conference. To view article, click here.

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September 27, 2007 – AdaptivEnergy proudly announces a new power record using Joule-Thief™ “powered by RLP®.” The smart energy harvesting beam increased the power output to 40mW at 1g through only mechanical movement. Jim Vogeley said, “Joule-Thief™ is now the highest output per unit volume energy harvester in the world! The RLP® is amazing.

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August 29, 2007 – AdaptivEnergy announces the one year anniversary of the LPD-125 Liquid Pump “powered by RLP®” reliability testing. Five LPD-125 pumps have been operating continuously at 120Hz in harsh fluids for material compatibility. These pumps have demonstrated solid performance and reliability.

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HAMPTON, VA – July 16, 2007.  AdaptivEnergy announces a focus on both industrial and energy harvesting products – including RLP® pumps, fans, actuators and battery free wireless sensors.  The company’s stress biased RLP® technology is exceptionally effective for both converting electrical energy into motion (actuators) and converting motion into electrical energy (energy harvesting).  This week AdaptivEnergy successfully demonstrated the ability to continuously power a microcontroller and 1Hz ZigBee transmission by mounting a single low-profile Smart Energy Beam™ on a ¾ horsepower, 60 Hz motor.

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HAMPTON, VA – July 1, 2007.  AdaptivEnergy announces that its piezo-based resonant RLP® fans have attained a new benchmark for high temperature performance, with long term reliability demonstrated at > 1” peak to peak displacement at 100°C.  The fans run off line voltage or 12V and have stainless steel blades for reliability and enhanced cooling capacity.  The AdaptivEnergy design has been demonstrated to produce over twice the cooling capacity of competing Mylar-blade fans with similar form factors.

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HAMPTON, VA – June 20, 2007.  AdaptivEnergy announces the licensing of its RLP® LPD-125 pump to its FORTUNE 500 manufacturing and product development partner.

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HAMPTON, Virginia -- MAY 15, 2007 – Energy harvesting innovator AdaptivEnergy LLC, announced today that it has entered into a strategic investment and technology advancement agreement with In-Q-Tel, the independent strategic investment firm that identifies innovative technology solutions to support the mission of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the broader Intelligence Community (IC).

"Our partnership with In-Q-Tel underscores the strength of our technology and the novel capabilities we bring to the table to aid national security," said Mike Rocke, President and CEO of AdaptivEnergy.

AdaptivEnergy’s Joule-Thief™ is an advanced energy harvesting device that can use any movement, from the motion of a person walking, flowing air or water, or even a door opening and closing, to create and store electricity. Powered by RLP® technology, this clean and green device captures vibrational energy and converts it to electrical energy which can be used to power remote sensors or to extend the battery life of handheld mobile electronic products.

“AdaptivEnergy’s technology offers groundbreaking capabilities in energy harvesting," said Troy M. Pearsall, In-Q-Tel’s Executive Vice President of Technology Transfer. "In-Q-Tel is thrilled with the AdaptivEnergy partnership, and with the promise of further significant developments in alternatives to batteries for a wide variety of commercial and government applications.”

AdaptivEnergy eliminates batteries or extends battery life with its Joule-Thief™ energy harvester and reduces power consumption in devices powered with its RLP® actuators. AdaptivEnergy’s innovative products enable customers to create smaller handheld devices for consumer and medical applications, improve performance in industrial automation, and eliminate batteries from automated and wireless devices. AdaptivEnergy creates electrical energy and mechanical work in an environmentally and space efficient manner.

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HAMPTON, V.A. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) – May 10, 2007 – AdaptivEnergy LLC has announced the first licensee for their proprietary RLP® (Ruggedized Laminated Piezo) lightweight actuator. The licensee, a FORTUNE 500 company, will also serve as a high volume global manufacturing source for AdaptivEnergy’s captive RLP® customers.

AdaptivEnergy is now well positioned to sign additional licensees to use the RLP® technology internally, as well deliver a catalog of off-the-shelf RLP® actuators to other high volume customers.

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HAMPTON, V.A. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- April 24, 2007, PAR Technologies, LLC is now AdaptivEnergy LLC. The change reflects the success of the company’s RLP® (Ruggedized Laminated Piezo) actuator and introduction of new Joule-Thief™ energy harvesting products which eliminate batteries or extend battery life in handheld devices.

AdaptivEnergy is led by the newly appointed CEO, Mike Rocke, who is focusing the team on green and clean technology powered by the company’s core RLP® technology. Mr. Rocke is an industry veteran from Intel and Siemens and holds patents in Hybrid Power Systems and Integrated Fuel Cell Cooling. Prior to AdaptivEnergy, he was running Rocke Capital Ventures, an investment and consulting company, which specializes in alternative energy solutions.

The RLP® is a small, powerful and rugged actuator which is ideal for applications that require mechanical work in a small form factor ranging from portable/wearable battery powered devices to complex analytical instruments. The compact planar form factor of the RLP® makes it ideal for embedding into highly integrated systems that can generate power, or use power to do mechanical work. AdaptivEnergy’s Joule-Thief™ is an advanced energy harvesting device that can use any movement, from the motion of a moving automobile, to a person walking, flowing air or water, or even a door opening and closing to create and store electricity. Powered by RLP® technology, these devices capture vibrational energy and convert it to electrical energy which can be used to power remote sensors and tracking devices or to extend the battery life of handheld mobile electronic products.

AdaptivEnergy’s products are used by tier one companies with applications in portable fuel cells, LED lighting, GPS location, thermal management, medical and life sciences products and portable handheld devices.

AdaptivEnergy (spelled as one word and pronounced as it is read) is based on the adaptability of our RLP® technology which can be used to create electrical energy or mechanical work in an environmentally and space efficient manner.

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