Philippe Basset is a professor at ESIEE Paris, a school of engineering which is a founding member of the Université Gustave Eiffel (UGE), one of our partners at GRAPHERGIA. He is also the director of ESYCOM, a joint research lab between UGE, CNRS and CNAM. The main activities of ESYCOM are dedicated to sensors and communicating systems.  

In the GRAPHERGIA project, Philippe and his team are in charge of the Work Package (WP) 4 ‘Advanced electrical modelling and efficient power management of TENGs for energy harvesting and self-powered sensing IoT applications’, and also involved in the WP 5 ‘Design, manufacturing and testing of representative technology demonstrators’, to test and validate the three demo cases of GRAPHERGIA: All-in-one self-charging textile capable of energy harvesting and storage, Self-powered structurally integrated sensor for aerospace structures, and Advanced graphene-based LIB module prototype for space applications.

The WP4 objectives are to:

  • Define the optimal rectifying circuit for a given TENG device.
  • Design and fabricate reliable and optimized MEMS plasma switches for HV-to-LV DC/DC conversion.
  • Capture and process TENG signals in constrained environment with the application of machine learning.
  • Implement modular IoT system for fast prototyping, demonstration and validation of TENG-based applications.

Read his interview to discover more about how they are involved in GRAPHERGIA!

Why did you join the GRAPHERGIA project? 

Powering sensors whose complete system is directly integrated into textiles is both very difficult and very expensive. In my laboratory, we have been working on energy harvesting by electrostatic transduction for almost 20 years, mainly targeting conditioning electronics. Recently, we have been focusing more and more on the modelling and conditioning of triboelectric generators, which are a subcategory of electrostatic transducers.

The GRAPHERGIA consortium partners will develop promising triboelectric generators (TENGs) and batteries. This will give us the opportunity to develop new circuits or optimise existing architectures that we have previously proposed, to obtain state-of-the-art triboelectric generators systems. In addition, targeting practical applications with strong potential for industrial development is very exciting.

What does your organisation bring to the project? Can you describe your role in GRAPHERGIA?

UGE has been working for over ten years on conditioning electronics for electrostatic kinetic energy harvesters such as TENGs. In the GRAPHERGIA project, we aim to develop a strategy for proposing the best conditioning circuits/energy management systems for the TENGs manufactured by the members of the consortium, and for a given application, i.e. a specific mechanical excitation. To this end, we are developing a test bench for the fine characterisation of TENGs, in order to propose an accurate model of TENG package elements. On the basis of these data, we will propose an electrical conditioning system and validate it using SPICE simulations. 

A few years ago, we proposed an energy management system using a fully autonomous MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) micro-plasma switch based on the Pashen effect. In this project, we will also work on improving this device, and we will implement it in a demonstrator with wireless communication, for example via the BLE protocol.

What expectations do you have for the project from your personal/organisational perspective?

We are very enthusiastic about the idea of working with European partners in the field of TENGs, as this subject is mainly studied in Asia, where we have most of our contacts and collaborations. 

As the laboratory is not involved in materials science, this project gives us the opportunity to work on innovative devices made from advanced materials by the other members of the consortium.

Which impact will GRAPHERGIA have on industry and society in the short and long term?

Intelligent, energy-independent textiles hold great promise: they will make it possible to monitor health at low cost and with minimal inconvenience to the user. As well as the benefits for society, this is also a huge potential market.