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ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 Resource Center

Welcome to our section on ZigBee resources, IEEE 802.15.4 information, news, articles and tools.

Featured Research Reports

Smart Grid

Smart Grid, assessing one of the most dynamic growth markets of the next decade, provides insight into current and projected spending, key players and contacts, and product opportunities. The next 10-to-20 years will see more than $400 billion invested in various smart grid technologies. The smart grid is envisioned as providing a communications network for the energy industry similar to that which the Internet now provides for business and personal communications.

Market opportunities in six segments are assessed in Smart Grid, as follows:

• Advanced Metering Infrastructure & Smart Meters
• Communications Networks
• In-Home Energy Management
• Energy Storage
• Transmission Infrastructure
• Sensors, Controls & Grid Optimization

As expected in any market assessment, this report provides market forecasts and discussions of technologies and applications. But Smart Grid goes beyond these basics, reviewing pilot projects, discussing deployment plans by major U.S. electric utilities, and assessing American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for projects.

Smart Grid provides a comprehensive guide to opportunities for electric utilities, developers and suppliers of smart grid technologies, and engineering firms that design and construct installations.

Published By: Richard K. Miller & Associates
Date Published: Nov 2009

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Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensor Networks

This report presents, analyzes, and reviews the intellectual property holdings of companies developing energy harvesting technologies, wireless communications, and sensor technologies optimized for operation using energy harvested in the ambient environment. The largest and most fundamental holdings in this area are owned by EnOcean GmbH and are realized in practice as EnOcean technology. The EnOcean protocol integrates a very energy-efficient wireless networking communication protocol with advanced energy harvesting techniques.

EnOcean’s intellectual property management activity began in 2001, coincident with the start of the company. Since then, the company has produced over 40 patents and applications. Three patents were assigned to EnOcean by Siemens AG after the startup spun out of Siemens. Other patents are predominantly authored by Frank Schmidt, the company’s CTO and one of the five founders of EnOcean.

The issues surrounding intelectual property protection activities of EnOcean in this market are important to participants in the sector, even those developing product with alternate technology.

Using a variety of information sources including company briefings, conference proceedings and public patent sources and filing information, this report reviews EnOcean, EnOcean Technology and the EnOcean Alliance and the scope of EnOcean Energy Harvesting IP holdings. In addition, patent and application holdings of other developers of Energy Harvesting technology are included as part of the analysis.

Published By: West Technology Research Solutions, LLC
Date Published: Jan 2009

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