Ultralow-Energy Wireless Smart-Scales System with Micropower Generator

Abstract

A wireless smart-scales system with a face recognition function has been developed as an application for wireless sensor networks. The face recognition employs a wireless camera; and the system automatically identifies a person and stores the weights of all the people that use the system on a server. Two key ultralow-energy circuit techniques were devised for the smart scales. One is a nearly-zero-standby-current circuit that combines a mechanical switch and an electrical CPU-controlled power switch; it reduces the standby power dissipation of the CPU from 1.5 mW to less than 0.1 µW. The other is a super-intermittently-operating circuit with a power-switch transistor and a small resistance; it suppresses the energy dissipation of the wireless camera to just 1/4 of the total energy dissipation. Furthermore, an electromechanical micropower generator with electromagnetic induction further reduces the energy dissipation. It is located under the scales and supplies a power of 75 mW during one second.