Pittsburgh, PA – April 30, 2009 – Powercast, a leader in the commercialization of RF energy harvesting and wireless power solutions, announced it has joined the Texas Instruments Developer Network to support wireless powering of devices driven by TI’s MSP430.  The MSP430 is a market leading, low power microcontroller embedded in numerous portable and low-power wireless devices.

Powercast’s RF energy harvesting technology and embedded wireless power solutions enable controllable wireless power, over distance, between one or more sources and multiple receivers.  Devices with Powercast components can be designed for battery-free or battery-minimized operation, thereby eliminating disposable batteries and their adverse environmental impact.  These devices can be dormant, with zero stand-by power, and activated remotely with power being sent on-demand, on a scheduled basis, or continuously.

“We are pleased to have Powercast join TI’s Developer Network,” said Eric Siegel, MCU developer network manager at Texas Instruments.  “Combining wireless power technology with the ultra-low power consumption of the MSP430, Powercast’s innovative solutions eliminate the need to replace batteries by providing constant, unattended charge for applications in the low-power RF market.”

Powercast has also developed an integrated module for demonstrating battery-free wireless sensors.  The Powercast module contains an integrated power receiving antenna, a Powerharvester™ module, energy storage, and space for a low-power wireless module like Texas Instruments eZ430-RF2500T.

“The wireless sensor market is rapidly expanding and today’s wireless sensors are predominantly powered by disposable batteries.  Battery replacement creates a significant operational challenge that will greatly impact the willingness of end-users to scale sensor networks or deploy wireless sensors in hard to service locations.” said Harry Ostaffe, Director of Marketing for Powercast.  “Powercast’s wireless power solutions enable battery-free designs for wireless sensor devices, and allow for lifetime operation without changing batteries.”

Powercast featured a short video on their wireless sensors blog to show LEDs being powered from the RF energy harvested from an iPhone operating in 2G mode.  When the phone is called it is emitting enough RF energy to power the LEDs driven by Powercast’s RF energy harvesting technology and a simple dipole antenna tuned for the 900MHz ISM band.  We added the Powercast logo to the iPhone, but there is no Powercast technology inside.  The sound is a litte low so you might have to turn up the volume a little bit.

On 01/07/2009, Powercast was fortunate to be given an opportunity to promote wireless power on the NBC Today show with Paul Hochman, NBC Today Show Technology Corespondent.  In this segment, Paul reviewed wireless power and the potential of a world without wires.  He featured, not only Powercast, but also Wi Power and Ecoupled.  Wi Power and Ecoupled are both inductive powering technology companies focusing on the near field power problem.  Powercast, is of course, focused on the far field power solution.

In the following photo, Charlie Green of Powercast is standing by the Powercast product displays where he is illustrating low wattage lighting, recharging remote controls and several other Powercast proof of concept products. These demonstration products are currently being evaluated by a variety of collaborators as viable commercial products based upon Powercast core technology.

Powercast is unique in that we employ RF wireless power, rather than magnetic field induced power.  This means that we can provide remote power, and even harvest ambient power, to produce electricity.  At 2009 CES, Powercast promises to be one of the most well attended booths (SANDS #73034) as several major electronic and battery companies have expressed interest in licensing or embedding Powercast technological attributes into their low wattage products.

The NBC Today show video can be seen in its entirety.

This blog is designed to promote and provide information of the development of RF Wireless Power as a standardized and universal applied technology. It is Powercast Corporation’s intent to deliver power distribution systems that simply deliver wireless power for a wireless world.  The blog is authored by Steve A. Day, Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Planning for Powercast Corporation.

RF Wireless Power demonstrated over distance

Over the last year, Powercast (www.powercastco.com) has been busy working on over 20 commercial product implementations, and at the same time learning a lot about the advantages and limitation of our technologies.  What we have discovered is several things.  First, the strength of wireless power involves Powercast’s ability to power over distance.  We have shown that we can transmit mWatts of power over 10’s of feet, and powered a wireless sensor-like circuit over 100 feet … which was even amazing to our own team.  When looking at a variety of applications such as wireless sensors, security devices, power assisted RFID and so on … Powercast can strongly argue that these devices can be sufficiently powered over distance.

Secondly, Powercast provides an opportunity to power multiple devices.  Piezo, kinetic, inductive and magnetic power technologies are largely centered on the powering of a single transmitter to a single receiver.

RF technology is a well understood, safe energy source.  While Tesla discovered the opportunity to harvest RF energy over 100 years ago, Powercast is the technology company responsible for design of a commercial solution for harvesting RF energy, a company that built a commercial transmission system (transmitter and receiver) and a company that built a network of multi-point to multi-point powering solutions.

There are three types of wireless power.  Near field powering that delivers Watts over centimeters.  Far field powering that delivers mWatts over meters.  And Ambient powering, which is essentially a form of energy harvesting.  Powercast has built solutions for all three environments.  We learned that far field powering is a more complex solution that promises 9 identified benefits.

• Any to any powering
• Power over distance
• Hermetically sealed and isolated powering
• Ability to power many and diverse devices from the same system
• Increased electronic reliability resulting from an untethered and distant power source
• Situational ecology, whereas multiple device powering exponentially increases impact on battery use
• Freedom in distance and alignment
• Elegant design variables including RF frequencies, form factor, RF energy levels, RF antenna design and so forth.
• RF wireless power can be configured as a power distribution system (transmit and receive), or as an energy harvesting solution (ambient energy)

These attributes of RF wireless power and our intellectual property really set Powercast apart.  Powercast … the future of wireless power.