Chip-on-mud: Ultra-low power ARM-based oceanic sensing system powered by small-scale benthic microbial fuel cells

An ARM-based sensing platform powered entirely by small-scale benthic microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for oceanic sensing applications is presented. The ultra-low power chip featuring an ARM Cortex-M0 processor, 3kB of SRAM, and power management unit (PMU) with energy harvesting from MFCs is designed to consume 11nW in sleep mode for perpetual sensing operation. A small-scale micro-MFC with 21.3cm2 anode surface area was connected to the on-chip PMU to charge a thin film battery of 1mAh capacity. A 49.3-hour long-term experiment with 8-min sleep interval and 1 sec wake-up time demonstrated the sustainability of chip-on-mud concept. During sleep mode, the system charges the 4V battery at 380nA from the micro-MFC generating 5.4μW of power, which can support up to 20mA of active mode current.

本文介绍了一种完全由小型海底微生物燃料电池（MFC）供电的基于ARM的传感平台，用于海洋传感应用。这种超低功耗芯片具有ARM Cortex - M0处理器、3kB的静态随机存取存储器（SRAM）以及可从MFC获取能量的电源管理单元（PMU），其在睡眠模式下功耗为11纳瓦，可实现永久传感操作。一个阳极表面积为21.3平方厘米的小型微型MFC连接到片上PMU，为一个容量为1毫安时的薄膜电池充电。一项为期49.3小时的长期实验，睡眠间隔为8分钟，唤醒时间为1秒，证明了“芯片置于泥上”这一概念的可持续性。在睡眠模式下，系统从微型MFC以380纳安的电流为4V电池充电，产生5.4微瓦的功率，该功率可支持高达20毫安的活动模式电流。