EnSO – Energy for Smart Objects

The buzzword »Internet of Things« (IoT) is gaining more and more attention in the electronic industry. The Internet of Things is a concept in which everyday objects can communicate with each other and are connected via the Internet. It is expected that by 2020, 24 billion connected devices will be in operation worldwide. More than a third of these devices are expected to be IoT Smart Objects during this period.

A key element here is the electronic hardware, which is based on several components, such as sensors, actuators, micro-controllers, communication interfaces, energy harvesters and storage devices. These smart objects have some requirements: they should be autonomous, easy to use, as small as possible, robust and durable.

The project has a term of 4 years and runs from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2019

EnSO was approved for financing under the Joint Undertaking ECSEL in cooperation with the European Union Framework Program (H2020 / 2014-2020) and national authorities under Grant Agreement No. 692482.

The project will receive an ECSEL JU grant of up to € 18.7 million out of a total budget of € 82 million, with national funding from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the Switzerland is financed.

EnSO has been selected on the basis of the following key characteristics among other projects submitted under the 2015 call for proposals for pilot projects:

• The consortium's excellence, including universities, institutes, SMEs and large enterprises
• Developing innovative solutions using innovative technologies in the context of the ECSEL Strategic Thrusts
• Creating a new and realistic research and development and innovation environment
• Producing demonstrators in sufficient quantities to determine their value and potential
• Development of an introduction plan leading to production in Europe

Supply chain:

• Meyer Burger (The Netherlands)
• Henkel Electronic Materials (Belgium)
• Prayon S.A. (Belgium)
• BASF Schweiz AG (Switzerland)
• IMA (Czech Republic)

Academic research institutes:

• Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (France)
• Université de Lorraine / Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France)
• Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS / Fraunhofer Research Institution for Microsystems and Solid State Technologies EMFT (Germany)
• Czech Technical University in Prague (Czech Republic)
• University of Liège(Belgium)
• Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (The Netherlands)
• François Rabelais University / Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France)
• La Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spain)

Integrated device manufacturers:

• Enerbee (France)
• MAHLE Thermoelektronik GmbH (Germany)
• Nordson DIMA (The Netherlands)
• SOLEMS S.A. (France)

End user (among others):

• GN Resound AS (Denmark)
• Gemalto S.A. (France)
• Evalan BV (The Netherlands)
• SKF BV (The Netherlands)
• AED Engineering GmbH (Germany)
• GAS Natural SDG SA (Spain)

1. Demonstrating the competitiveness of EnSO energy solutions for the power supply of the autonomous smart objects of the targeted smart society and smart health key applications.
2. Disseminating EnSO energy solutions with easy-to-use demonstration kits and support the autonomous prototyping of smart objects in a variety of use cases to promote the uptake of emerging markets.
3. Developing highly reliable assembly technologies for malleable microbatteries, energy harvesters and power management devices for autonomous micro-energy sources (AMES).
4. Developing customizable smart refresh and Energy Harvesting technologies with adequate power condition IP blocks for AMES autonomous micro energy sources.
5. Demonstrating and evaluating AMES design and manufacturing capabilities based on generic keys to enable building blocks (storage and power conditioning) for intelligent autonomous microsystems.

The main fields of application addressed by the EnSO project are:

• Smart Health (e.g. portable sensors, rechargeable hearing aids, smart glasses for IOP measurement)
• Smart Society (e.g. Smart Locks, Secure Authentication Wearbles)
• Smart Mobility & Smart Production (e.g. monitoring of industrial plants, indoor localization and navigation support)