Battery life extended by Bristol voltage detector

The voltage detector chip, developed by Dr Bernard Stark and colleagues in the Bristol Electrical Energy Management Research Group at Bristol University, requires only a few picowatts to activate other circuits.

In this way it could be used to control industrial, environmental or medical sensors that consume no power when waiting for a particular event to happen. Instead, the chip would switch on the sensor in response to the energy contained in the event itself, such as the infrared light in a TV remote control, the motion of a tracker, or the sound waves generated by a component rattling, said Stark.

The device is based on the same principle as the chips used inside computers to monitor power supply rails to ensure the voltage does not dip below a certain threshold.

The researchers have developed a detector in which the chip responds to a very low voltage threshold, he said.