EnOcean creates new energy harvesting wireless technology education program

April 27, 2012 // Paul Buckley

EnOcean has launched a new university program which aims to educate the university community about energy harvesting wireless technology and open up students’ career opportunities at EnOcean.

The program addresses Electronics, Software or Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and other related courses. A key element of the programme is 13 month placements (internships) for students.

EnOcean is the originator of patented energy harvesting wireless technology. The company manufactures and markets maintenance-free wireless sensor solutions for use in buildings and industrial installations as well as in further application fields such as smart home, smart metering, logistics or transport. EnOcean solutions are based on miniaturized energy converters, ultra-low-power electronic circuitry and reliable wireless. The technology works entirely maintenance-free without batteries. Its wireless modules harvest the energy they need to power radio communications by collecting energy from ambient sources – such as motion, light and temperature differentials. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has recently ratified EnOcean's wireless technology as the international standard ISO/IEC 14543-3-10, which is optimised for wireless solutions with ultra-low power consumption and energy harvesting.

The candidates selected for the 13 month placements will start working in the development labs of EnOcean this July. Although primarily focused on design and development, there will also be regular involvement with marketing, sales, manufacturing and the recruitment of their successors – a chance for the students to experience the “full picture” of industrial activity. Furthermore, the year-long duration of the placement will allow the candidates to become deeply familiar with EnOcean technology. As the company continues to grow, these internships also offer a great chance for students to start a career at EnOcean after graduation.

The EnOcean university programme will also harness the creativity of the education community to explore batteryless wireless technology and its potential for new fields of application. The company already works closely with several universities in research projects and will expand this to include student projects and university labs.

To guide this new programme, EnOcean has engaged university-expert Robert Owen. From 1994 to 2011 Robert built and ran The European University Programme of Texas Instruments (TI). Across this period he visited over 500 different universities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is known to more than 2,000 lecturers and researchers across the region. The model he built for this program became TI's template worldwide and encompasses analog, RF, and microcontroller technologies. In Europe today there are more than 1,000 TI-based labs, used by circa 30,000 students every year. Robert holds a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

“The EnOcean university program will enable bright students to gain a deep view inside our unique energy harvesting wireless technology and to contribute something to its further development on a long-term placement,” said Robert Owen, EnOcean University Programme Manager. “Furthermore building links across the design labs of universities will enable new technologies developed by academia to be harnessed in next generation applications based on the EnOcean technology.”

Frank Schmidt, Chief Technology Officer of EnOcean, commented: “This initiative aims to broaden our presence and visibility in the research community. With Robert we won the ideal expert who brings to EnOcean an established long-term relationship with leading European universities. One of our main objectives is to educate young engineers how to deal with EnOcean technology. For this we offer universities our ESK 300 starter kit as the most suitable platform. Including a variety of energy converters and RF modules it enables students a speedy and simple approach to easily test and develop energy harvesting wireless solutions.”

More information about the program at www.enocean.com/enocean_student_placements

Visit EnOcean at www.enocean.com

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