Talk: Sustainable IoT: Energy-aware computing and communications on battery-free devices

Abstract: In the Internet of Things, billions of battery-powered devices are connected to the Internet. However, batteries are expensive, bulky, cause pollution and degrade after a few years. Replacing and disposing of billions of dead batteries every year is costly and unsustainable. As an alternative, battery-free devices are envisioned, that harvest energy from ambient sources in the environment and store it in a small capacitor. This results in high variability in terms of available energy, causing frequent power failures and intermittency. In this talk, I discuss novel methods for energy harvesting on battery-free devices, as well as how to enable effective computing and communications in face of intermittent energy availability, by way of energy-aware joint computing and communications strategies. Thus allowing battery-free devices to effectively participate in the Internet of Things.

Bio: Jeroen Famaey is a research professor associated with the University of Antwerp and imec, Belgium. He received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Ghent University, Belgium in 2007 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science Engineering from the same university in 2012. He currently leads the research on Connected Systems at the IDLab research group. His own research focuses on the modelling and optimization of wireless networks and distributed systems. His specific interests include joint communications and sensing for Extended Reality applications, and optimization of low-power energy harvesting systems and networks. His research has resulted in over 170 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, as well as 8 granted patents. He has received 6 best paper awards, and was listed among the top 2% cited scientists worldwide by Stanford University in 2022.