Radio Frequency (RF) Energy Harvesting and Low-Power Electronics Design & Development Consultants

Creating ultra energy-efficient smart devices, with experience in the whole product life-cycle from ideation through design, development, supply-chain formation and manufacturing management

Expertise

Our engineering team has over 80 years’ experience in the design, development and manufacture of low-power electronic smart devices. We specialise in applications where the efficient use of power over the lifetime of an endpoint device is crucial. We apply our expertise in energy harvesting, ultra-efficient circuit design, component selection and optimisation, RF tuning, and manufacture, to deliver enhanced product performance with minimal power consumption. This extends battery life and in some cases removes the need for a battery entirely.

Freevolt has invested heavily in the development of world-leading capabilities in RF energy harvesting and low-power electronic circuit design, built a portfolio of 14 patent families to protect its technology, and developed and launched two innovative new products “powered by Freevolt”. The first was the award-winning CleanSpace air pollution monitoring network that led to the creation of the Sensyne machine learning technology and was spun-out into a separate company and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2018. More recently the Company has focused on applying its know-how to the development and manufacture of battery-less smart cards and has launched the S-Key biometric smart card, which is completely powered by Freevolt’s RF energy harvesting technology.

The Company provides its expertise and access to its proprietary technology via the provision of engineering consultancy services and licensing of its IP in the following areas:

· Tuning and optimisation of RF front end systems

· RF energy harvesting feasibility study and design

· High efficiency power regulation design and implementation

· Component selection and procurement

· Low power electronics refinement and optimisation to minimise losses

· Low power electronics circuit design, simulation and testing

· Energy efficient firmware design and implementation

· Schematic capture and PCB layout

· Manufacturing process design and implementation, including production test design, implementation, and roll-out

Our Engineering Team is based in our London office including our R&D lab, which is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment for the rapid development and characterisation of new technologies and product designs. We have experience in the whole product life-cycle, from ideation through design, development, supply-chain formation and manufacturing management. Since 2014 the Team has undertaken engineering consultancy work for customers in the medical, wearable device, environmental monitoring, defence, aerospace and security sectors and has won several awards for innovation.

Technology

Freevolt’s patent portfolio covers key areas, from basic power harvesting designs and principles through to more generic operational technologies used for integration. Our foundational RFEH families cover generic and specific approaches, and are applicable to a wide range of form-factors, end-user applications and frequency bands. We have a particular focus on smartcards including a number of generic techniques with wide application beyond this area, such as the design and production of printed inductors or the efficient use of capacitive energy storage.

We continue to develop novel approaches, incrementally improving our existing technology and creating entirely new approaches and solutions. Freevolt’s fundamental approach to IP is to find the most efficient solution to any problem, and where no good enough solution exists, to create one. Our patent portfolio therefore continues to grow and evolve.

Applications

Typical applications include harvesting power at very high efficiency from RF-emitting devices such as smartphones (iOS and Android), Wi-Fi routers, or powered door mounted smart card readers (both hardwired and battery). In each case we analyse and match the emitted RF field to maximise the energy harvested, designing systems that are very frugal in storing and using the energy and to power edge devices, such as sensors, consumer products, or smart cards.

The growing interest in embedding AI into wireless edge devices, such as ear buds, provides an excellent application for Freevolt’s high efficiency designs for ultra-low power energy harvesting and storage in a small and flexible form factor.

S-Key Spotlight

Our latest product, S-Key, is the world’s first battery-less biometric access card which works with NFC / 13.56 MHz based access control systems, out-of-the-box.

Using our latest Freevolt technology and engineering expertise we have delivered a solution which efficiently captures RF energy from a wide range of physical and logical access readers, both hard-wired and battery powered. S-Key stores a hashed template of the card owner’s fingerprint securely on the card and can run a biometric verification process powered by the card reader in around 1 second, in a standard smart card footprint of less than 1 mm thickness.

Our S-Key product is sold across the world to help reduce identity theft by eliminating the risk of lost, shared, or stolen smart cards. Click below to find out more about S-Key and where to buy it.

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People

Lord (Paul) Drayson, PhD FREng

Board

Chairman

Engineer and science entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience in founding and leading successful businesses in life sciences, AI, motorsport R&D and FMCG.

Lady (Elspeth) Drayson, BSc MSc MPhil(Oxon)

Board

Non-executive Director

Physicist and businesswoman with over 20 years’ experience in technology transfer and innovation management in life sciences, AI, & motorsport R&D.

Gordon Saul AB, Engineering MBA

Board

Non-executive Director

Business executive and venture investor with over 30 years’ experience in technology and life sciences. Currently Executive Director Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign, Adjunct Professor Stanford Bioengineering.

Gonzalo de Gisbert, MEng

Management

Head of Product and Business Development

Engineer and business professional with experience working in the smart card, wireless, IoT, and mobility & transportation industries. MEng from Imperial College London and EMBA from Quantic School of Business & Technology.

Alison Lloyd, BSc (Hons)

Management

Head of Engineering

Expert in low-level, bare metal firmware and software, with experience across a range of different architectures, systems and platforms; this includes full life-cycle design and product development, including IP protection.

Victor Diaz, MSc

Engineering

Lead Engineer

Engineer with a focus on R&D and bringing innovative ideas into reality, with core competencies of RF, electronics and project management. Experience with embedded firmware, windows applications and data processing, as well as team and project leadership.

Vitor Freitas, PhD

Engineering

RF Senior Engineer

Expertise in electromagnetic modelling, antenna design, RF circuit design, test and validation, both on PCB and silicon. Strong interest in research and innovation, continually seeking and exploring groundbreaking solutions.

Richard Carter, MEng (Hons)

Engineering

Electronic Engineer

Electronic engineer with experience incorporating software development and designs ranging from analog through to high-speed digital & FPGA. Particular interest in embedded systems with proficiency in multiple programming languages and CAD systems.

Amanda Mao, MSc

Commercial

Marketing Manager

Marketing professional with strong technical knowledge and business strategy. Passionate about inventive problem-solving through the fusion of creativity and emerging technologies. BEng in Industrial Design and an MSc in Management.

Phil Tennent

Commercial

International Business Development Manager

Seasoned business leader with over 30 years of experience in international business development, sales, and marketing.

About

Freevolt Technologies Limited is a UK technology company founded in 2014 as a spin-out from Imperial College London to commercialise research in the fields of radio frequency energy harvesting and wireless charging technologies with the aim of improving the energy efficiency and environmental sustainability of low power electronic devices.

We are based in London, UK, with a team of international engineers bringing a wealth of experience in electronic product development, manufacturing and commercialisation. Our board is led by Lord Drayson PhD FREng, a serial technology entrepreneur and former Government Minister.

At Freevolt we believe in a sustainable ecosystem of smart devices, where battery life has been maximised, or the need for a battery eliminated, through the efficient harvesting and frugal use of energy. Our designs reduce the number of batteries going to landfill and reduce environmental impact, while enabling more features and greater functionality.

We provide consultant engineering services and license our technology to companies that wish to use Freevolt technology to enhance their products. By offering drop-in-ready reference designs, we reduce integration effort and time to market.