Bridge sensors with the chip wouldn't need costly battery changes.
Robert Andosca, founder and president of MicroGen, places a silicon wafer containing 20 micro power generators into its cassette box inside a clean room at the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, in Ithaca.Ithaca, NY -- A bridge studded with thousands of sensors to monitor its structural integrity would be “smart” only until the batteries ran out.
Then you’d have to buy thousands of new batteries, pay a bunch of people to change them and throw away all those dead batteries.
The costs — both monetary and environmental — can really add up over the lifetime of a bridge, a building, a jet engine, a vehicle tire or almost anything else you want to monitor.
A cheaper solution would transform the wireless sensor business. Robert Andosca believes he has it.
With help from New York state, Cornell University and the Clean Tech Center, in Syracuse, Andosca’s Ithaca-based company, MicroGen Systems LLC, has developed a chip that harvests energy from vibrations.
A bridge sensor equipped with the chip could be powered almost indefinitely by the traffic rumbling by. And because it doesn’t have a battery that needs to be changed, the sensor could be mounted in hard-to-reach places or even embedded in concrete.
“It would be a sentry monitoring that particular part of the bridge. It’s always on,” Andosca said. “If there’s a problem, boom, shut down the gates.”
This silicon wafer that's produced by MicroGen is seen close-up at the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, in Ithaca.That’s just one use out of literally millions that Andosca envisions for his company’s devices — from controlling the lights in a building to measuring G-forces in a helicopter.
The wireless sensor business is forecast to grow from $8 billion in 2009 to $13 billion in 2012. By one estimate, the industrial and building market alone will require 90 million wireless sensor “nodes” by then.
“It’s an enormous market, and Rob is getting in at the beginning,” said Linda Dickerson Hartsock, vice president of innovation and technology for CenterState CEO and executive director of the Clean Tech Center. “Being first to market is key.”
MicroGen plans to launch its first product, the BOLT Power-Chip, this fall. The technology is based on micro-electromechanical systems — MEMS for short.
MEMS are microscopic machines — think tiny diving boards, gears, switches or springs — etched or layered onto silicon wafers. Like computer chips, they can be made in bulk, which lowers their cost.
MEMS are found in computer game controllers, mobile phones, vehicle airbags, tire-pressure sensors, GPS systems and laptop computers.
Harvesting energy with MEMS is a new capability developed by MicroGen, which is seeking patents. It’s considered “green” because it eliminates the need for batteries — and the need for their disposal.
Taken further, MicroGen’s technology could be used to make a battery that charges itself. Last month, MicroGen and Cornell Energy Materials Center agreed to work together to develop one. That creates a conduit for financial support from the state-designated Center for Future Energy Systems in Troy; the energy materials center; and the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF), in whose cleanroom Andosca’s team is building prototypes of the energy-harvesting MEMS.
“For the region and New York state, it’s technology that’s being proven here,” said Paul Mutolo, director of external partnerships for the energy materials center. “Getting into the marketplace has been accelerated by key expertise at the CNF and the energy materials center. That acceleration happens from New York state funding.”
Andosca, 43, lives near Rochester and commutes to Ithaca. He said he’s committed to growing the company Upstate.
Andosca grew up in New Hampshire and went to college there. He earned a master’s degree in materials science from the University of Vermont, where he is finishing his Ph.D.
After holding a series of high-tech jobs in the Boston area and at Corning IntelliSense, in May 2007 Andosca became a consultant to the Infotonics Technology Center, in Canandaigua. MicroGen Systems LLC had been incorporated two months earlier with $150,000 in early-stage funding from UVM.
In March 2009, MicroGen received a $300,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, with $319,000 in matching funds from other sources and from sweat equity.
In May of that year, the company placed second in the Rochester Regional Business Plan contest, where the prize was office space at High Tech Rochester, in West Henrietta. Andosca parked the company there, and recently hired its entrepreneur-in-residence, David Hessler, to be MicroGen’s CEO. He’s since moved the company to the Cornell Business & Technology Park, in Ithaca.
Earlier this year, MicroGen was one of five finalists for a $200,000 prize from New York’s Creative Core Emerging Business Competition.
Robert Andosca, founder and president of MicroGen Systems, holds up his company's quadchip, which contains four micro power generators. With him is Paul Mutolo, director of external partnerships for Cornell University.MicroGen also hooked up with the Clean Tech Center, a clean energy incubator in Syracuse funded by NYSERDA. In December, it was one of nine companies accepted into the incubator’s mentoring program, which walks companies through a checklist of business development steps. Last month, it became the first of its class to complete the checklist and be certified “investment ready,” Hartsock said.
“They have very strong technical expertise in Rob and someone who has successfully created, funded and spun out tech companies with a deep financial background (in Hessler),” Hartsock said. “It’s a particularly strong combination.”
Andosca is pounding the pavement for $750,000 — or more — in funding from angel and strategic investors.
MicroGen employs six but hopes to create 30 jobs by 2015. It forecasts revenues of $1 million by 2011 and plans to be profitable two to four years after that.
MicroGen is part of a MEMS cluster that has sprung up around the CNF. The cluster includes Kionix, a MEMS manufacturer spun out of Cornell in 1993, and also located at the business and technology park. Last year, the company was acquired for a reported $233 million by Japanese semiconductor maker Rohm Co. Ltd.
Andosca can only dream of such a payday. For now, he’s making half of what he pays his engineer and is working hard to beat the odds stacked against high-tech startups.
“This is the launch of a really amazing industry,” he said.
--Contact Marie Morelli at mmorelli@syracuse.com or 470-2220.