Sensors powered by trees

MIT researchers are developing a novel power scavenging systes for small wireless sensors that monitor for forest fires. The sensors are powered by the trees themselves. Each sensor's battery is trickle charged with the electricity generated by the imbalance in pH between the tree and the soil. From the MIT News Office:

A single tree doesn't generate a lot of power, but over time the "trickle charge" adds up, "just like a dripping faucet can fill a bucket over time," said Shuguang Zhang, one of the researchers on the project and the associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering (CBE).

The system produces enough electricity to allow the temperature and humidity sensors to wirelessly transmit signals four times a day, or immediately if there's a fire. Each signal hops from one sensor to another, until it reaches an existing weather station that beams the data by satellite to a forestry command center in Boise, Idaho.

Preventing forest fires with tree power

• [MarlboroTestMonkey7]

  At long last the existential question of trees falling in the forest will be answered.

• [thievedrelic]

  personally, i’d rather not be surrounded by cables and blinking lights when i’m taking a stroll through the deep places of the forest.
  personally.

  but still; that is an enchantingly science-laden invention. i enjoy thinking about it~

• [Sijay]

  If trees could transmit alarms, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?

  We might, if they did all the time, for no good reason.

• [TJ S]

  Wouldn’t the sensors nearest the weather station, having to relay all other sensor’s data, need to transmit much more data, and possibly need more power than what the tree provides?

  I love the idea, but this seems like a possibly idea-killing flaw.

• [prunk]

  @#1
  You could set up an array of sensors with an increasing density as you get closer to the weather station and then make a mesh to send partial signals through multiple sensors. Plus you could just add booster antenna that don’t send any additional info but just relay. I think somehow if MIT is harvesting energy from pH imbalance in trees that they may be able to overcome the other logistics.
  I’m still waiting for them to figure out how to convert calories into battery power from the human digestive system. Imagine being able to burn fat away by recharging your devices.

• [Rampant]

  An easy joke to make MarlboroTestMonkey, but an enjoyable one here nonetheless :x

  I always delight in new technological innovations and, in this instance, whatever cost is certainly overcome by potential savings of lives (human or otherwise).

• [wolfiesma]

  Listen to me. Go to costco and get the Leyland Cypress tree if you can find it. Plant it by your house or on some abandoned piece of earth somewhere. Put trees in the ground everywhere you possibly can and the rest will work itself out. I’m sure of it.

• [TJ S]

  @#6
  Recharging my gadgets by burning off calories sounds great, but I’m a little concerned about how plugging in might work…

• [semiotix]

  Wouldn’t the sensors nearest the weather station, having to relay all other sensor’s data, need to transmit much more data, and possibly need more power than what the tree provides?

  I suspect they’ll plant special high-alkalinity trees in those regions.
  

• [Takuan]

  how about a flexible band around the trunk that harvests minute pulses of current as the tree bends in the wind?

• [Takuan]

  http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/speak-to-the-collar-the-shirts-playing-its-own-tune/2007/10/26/1192941339431.html

• [crackhead]

  Reminds me of the Epimetheus project out of NYU’s ITP: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/05/itp_show_epimetheus_tree.html

• [Anonymous]

  This is sensorship!

  I can’t believe all these people want to sensor an entire forest!

• [things]

  I wonder what effect this might have in the long term on the root. I wonder if the roots would wear out in the same way batteries wear out…