Natsuki Ikeda (M2), Department of Information and Communication Engineering, and other researches won the Paper Award and Presentation Award in DICOMO2019 by IPSJ

The paper Theoretical Analysis of IoT Sensors Operable in High Temperature Driven by Thermoelectric Harvester with Phase-Change Material (in Japanese) won Paper Award (23 papers out of 272 nominations) and Presentation Award (25 papers out of 272 nominations) in Multimedia, Distributed, Cooperative, and Mobile Symposium 2019 by IPSJ.

<About awarded research>
Thermoelectric generation by a thermoelectric generator (TEG) can harvest electric power from various heat sources such as high and low temperature. For proper function, however, temperature differences are required on both sides of the TEG. We focus on phase-change materials (PCMs) that maintain a constant temperature during phase change working as a temperature layer different from the external environment. In this study, we proposed a novel thermoelectric generation method using the PCMs to generate the temperature differences on both sides of the TEG, which can be applied even in a low-temperature environment without temperature gradient or in an environment without a distinctive temperature boundary, for instance, between air and high-temperature liquid. In this paper, we first conducted theoretical analysis such as the amount of harvested power and duration time of power generation. Subsequently, we worked on the initial investigation of problems when using the PCMs for power generation.

<Your impression & future plan>
I was able to win the prize with everyone's help. I will continue to do my best.