RIOT001 - Environmental Sensing Board for measuring Ambient Temperature, Humidity and Air Pressure in IoT devices

29 April 2020 - 0 Comments

Ricoh Electronic Devices Co. Ltd. has introduced the RIOT-001 - an environmental sensing board for measuring the ambient temperature, humidity, air pressure, and illuminance in the IoT devices. The measured data is collected by an MCU and sent to smartphones or tablets via Bluetooth using a dedicated application program. The RIOT-001 is designed with various power management ICs along with an ultra-low supply current and low output noise level. The new sensor board makes it easier for designers to develop new IoT devices with independent power supply, low energy consumption, small-sized components, etc. in a shorter time-to-market.

To maintain battery-free operation, the sensor board is powered by a photovoltaic cell and the energy is collected by the R1800 Buck DC/DC converter for energy harvesting. The collected energy can be stored in a unique small lithium-ion secondary battery of 0.35mAh capacity. An advanced battery monitoring system is embedded inside an RP124 LDO to monitor the special lithium-ion battery (SLB). The RP124 LDO features an ultra-low current consumption of only 0.2 µA (at no-load) and 0.1 µA for the battery monitor, this helps with prolonged battery life.

The circuit board is designed with another RP604 Buck-Boost DC/DC converter with a wide operating voltage from 1.8 to 5.5V to regulate the fluctuating SLB battery voltage during charging and discharging. One can use a CR2032 coin battery as an alternate power supply instead of the photovoltaic cell.