Voltree Power is in the final stages of prototyping a maintenance-free, mesh-networked sensing system to predict and detect forest wildfires.

Voltree’s “Early Wildfire Alert Network” (EWAN) consists of thousands of tiny humidity and temperature sensor nodes distributed over remote forestland. Each node contains a wireless transceiver that enables EWAN to instantly detect the onset of wildfires as well as continuously monitor forest conditions for accurate, ultra-high resolution, day-to-day, fire hazard prediction.

The idea of developing a “smart dust” or mesh network solution for forestland monitoring is not new. But until now, these solutions have been hampered by the impractical and expensive necessity to constantly replace batteries at thousands of hard-to-reach locations.

Voltree Power solved the problem of battery replacement by developing an inexpensive electricity generation system that harvests metabolic energy from the trees themselves and converts it to useable electricity. This technology is based in part on a phenomenon described in a recent publication in the Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE) peer-reviewed journal by a research group from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Voltree’s “bioenergy converter” has been integrated into a power module that does not depend on wind, light, heat gradients or mechanical movement and is environmentally benign to produce and run. It parasitically harvests metabolic energy from any large plant without significantly harming it and the useful lifetime of the device is only limited by the lifetime of the host. It is weather resistant, completely quiet and has no heat or noise signatures making it also ideal for various security applications, currently under development.

Voltree’s patent-pending bioenergy harvesting power module is ideal for many off-grid, trickle-charge, low-current, burst-type applications where conventional periodic battery replacement is impractical. Beyond EWAN forestland monitoring, Voltree is also developing systems for Homeland Security and border protection, remote environmental and agricultural sensing, and climate science research.

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