The EnABLES project, which combines Transnational Access (TAs), Joint Research Activities (JRAs) and Networking Activities on the field of energy harvesting, storage, micro-power management and system integration started at the beginning of 2018. The partners will create self-sustaining energy solutions to power the internet of things. Free-of-charge access to simulations, data libraries, equipment and expertise access along with feasibility studies will all be provided in a fast-track manner via the Transnational Access program.

Launch of Transnational Access Program for new Innovations

The TA program gives unprecedented access to developers from academia and industry and integrators of IoT devices to advanced research infrastructure based on the technology pillars of Energy Harvesting, energy storage, micro-power management and system integration. The TA providers are Tyndall National Institute (co-ordinator, Ireland), CEA Leti & Liten (France), Fraunhofer IIS and Fraunhofer IMS (Germany), imec (Netherlands). In addition, virtual access to databases of vibrational energy sources from real life applications is being offered by the Universities of Southampton and Perugia. EnABLES also funds JRAs between the mentioned partners along with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Politecnico di Torino and the University of Bologna. It is envisaged that the JRAs will lead to future TA offerings.

The access activities can be undertaken in many ways ranging from characterizing materials or devices, to physical or simulated feasibility studies to see if battery life in IoT devices can be prolonged. The potential impact of EnABLES is enormous – the significantly rising number of IoT devices will require an embedded self-contained power source. The access process is very simple, examples can be found on the EnABLES website. An online enquiry form is available at www.enables-project.eu. All outputs from the project activities will be made available as part of the EnABLES objective to build a collaborative ecosystem that creates miniaturized and autonomous sensors.

Facts of the EnABLES activities at a glance:

•               Building an ecosystem for collaboration initially creating EnABLES as a ‘starting community’

•               Providing external fast track access to expertise and laboratories (TA) – over 130 researchers and infrastructure worth of 2 billion euro

•               Fostering internal collaboration between partners (JRAs) guided by needs and opportunities

•               Creation of standardized and inter-operable libraries of parts & simulation tools in order to optimize the system level performance

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 730957.

Learn more about the EnABLES project www.iis.fraunhofer.de/enables or www.enables-project.eu