Feonic specialises in developing and miniaturisation powerful smart-material products and has been producing and selling a range of maintenance free, solid-state audio devices for over ten years under world-wide patent protection.

Laboratory results at Feonic show that when the smart-material in one of these audio products is subjected to external vibrations, electrical energy is generated and can be harvested and stored in ultra or super-capacitors very efficiently.

Unlike most mechanical vibration harvesting devices Feonic technology does not need to be tuned to specific resonant frequencies, but harvests power over a wide frequency range.

Following a number of documented rail accidents caused by failing train wheel bearings there is a real need to monitor the bearings temperatures in order to recognise and therefore predict change possibly avoiding potential failure.

The use of antiquated battery technology - with its need for battery replacement every few years, is hampering the widespread deployment of wireless connected sensors in many markets.

This project sets out to produce a small, lightweight power generator that harvests and stores sufficient energy from the train's mechanical vibrations to be used to create a maintenance-free autonomous power generator for wirelessly connected sensors for this and other markets.

A Feonic Hybrid Powercell will harvest and store power from a wide range of vibration frequencies commonly found in transportation, rotating, large machines -in many different industrial fields.

This power will be used to monitor and report any number of functions, for any number of possibilities in the emerging Internet of Things without maintenance support or battery replacement.