SEMINAR: Wearable Smart Interfaces as a Pervasive Energy Solution for the Internet of Things

Abstract:

Energy crises and global warming severely limit the ability of human civilization to develop along a sustainable path. Increasing renewable energy sources and decreasing energy consumption are fundamental steps to achieve sustainability. By using remotely deployed sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT) has already changed our daily life in fundamental and meaningful ways. In the meanwhile, it is also forcing the world to use a new form of energy to sustainably power billions of devices/sensors. The required energy source needs to be pervasive, mobile and different from the traditional power grid. Batteries may not be the best solution for the IoT, owing to their limited lifetime, size, environmental concerns and wide range of sensor distribution. Powering the IoT would be impossible without making the sensors self-powered by harvesting energy from the working environment to ensure the long-term operation. In addition, developing self-powered sensors can also effectively lower the global energy consumption considering their huge amount.
In this talk, I will introduce my research that contributed to the sustainable energy future via three fundamental approaches (1) energy harvesting from the ambient environment, especially I will present a hybrid power textile, which was constructed via large-scale weaving technique for simultaneously harvesting energy from ambient solar radiance and human body motion, as a new wearable and sustainable power source. (2) energy saving via developing self-powered/low-power sensors, including a machine learning assisted fully integrated stretchable sensor arrays for wearable and self-powered sign language translation to voice. (3) energy saving via improving building energy efficiency by manipulating the light-fabric interaction for localized thermal management. Here I will introduce a nanophotonic structure textile with tailored mid-infrared property for passive radiative human body cooling by using a nanoporous polyethylene fabric. It could lower human skin temperature by 2.3 oC compared with the commercial cotton fabric of same thickness, corresponding to a greater than 20% saving on indoor cooling energy.

Biography:

Dr. Jun Chen is currently a postdoctoral research fellow with Prof. Yi Cui at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Zhong Lin Wang. His research focuses on nanotechnology for energy, sensors, healthcare, and environment in the form of smart textiles, wearables, and Internet of things. He has already published 2 books, 85 journal articles and 45 of them are as first/corresponding authors in Nat. Energy, Nat. Sustain., Nat. Commun., Joule, and many others. He also filed 10 US patents and licensed 1. Jun received the 2015 Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award, and the 2015 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad. His current h-index is 52.