Toward zero-power sensing: a transient computing approach

Current and future IoT applications envision huge numbers of smart sensors in deploy-and-forget scenarii. We still design these smart sensing systems based on the assumption of significant energy storage availability, and working on low-power electronics to minimize the depletion rate of the stored energy. In this talk I will take a different perspective - I will look into designing smart sensing systems for operating exclusively from sporadically available environmental energy (zero-power sensing) and extremely limited energy storage. These "unusual" constraints open interesting new opportunities for innovation. I will give several examples of practical "transient computing" systems and I will outline future research and application challenges in this field.

Bio

Luca Benini is Full Professor at the University of Bologna. He also holds the chair of digital circuits and systems at ETHZ . He received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1997.

Dr. Benini's research interests are in energy-efficient system design and Multi-Core SoC design. He is also active in the area of energy-efficient smart sensors and sensor networks for biomedical and ambient intelligence applications.

He has published more than 700 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences, four books and several book chapters (h-index 86). He has been general chair and program chair of the Design Automation and Test in Europe Conference, the International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design, the Network on Chip Symposium. He is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Circuits and Systems the ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the Academia Europaea.