About Us

Zero Energy Networks (ZEN) Laboratory is housed in the Department of Electronics Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

We work on building embedded electronic systems for IoT applications pertaining to Aeroplane cabin monitoring, Healthcare, Smart homes, Intelligent Transport, Industrial Automation, Cognitive Jewellery, Automated Surveillance, and Indoor positioning systems.
We also strive at developing energy harvesting chips that suit our requirements. In order to make our systems smarter, we also employ data analytics.

A significant work in embedded space is at the MAC layer, layer 3 and other protocols. The lab has implemented Publish-Subscribe and REST architecture-based protocols and adapted embedded IPv6 flavours such as 6LowPAN.

Another focus area of the lab is related to RFID based localization and building RF energy harvesting platforms. An algorithm is being developed that can currently localize RFID tags to less than 2 feet. The laboratory has produced three energy harvesting silicon solutions to harvest RF power in the ultra-low power levels.

The laboratory has received several `Best paper’ awards and showcased a few prototypes to the Prime minister in the `Start-up India’ event organized by the government of India in Jan 2016.”

Our Research Areas

Energy Harvesting

Energy harvesting entities capture small amounts of energy over a long time from several sources such as Solar, Temperature differential, Vibration, RF power, Wind etc. Energy can be made to work twice (reuse) by scavenging waste heat generated by industrial plants and vibrations arising from machinery. Temperature differentials created in automobiles, aircraft’s, and homes are also good energy scavenging sources. Human actions such as walking, lifting, and pressing are sources for conversion into electricity. For example, energy harvesting is possible with simple mechanical actions when we press electrical switches to turn on (or turn off) electrical devices.

Tactile Internet

Tactile Internet enables accessibility of moving virtual objects at real time interaction speed. This technology permits haptic communication and allows human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interaction at the speed of light. Tactile Internet will enable remote monitoring, surgery and provides the medium of touch sense. To illustrate, moving our heads while wearing Virtual Reality Goggles and expecting an immediate response from the visual display. Tactile Internet has wide range of applications such as remote driving, remote servicing, and assembling of machine parts.

Communication Networks

In Zen lab, we work on a wide range of research areas within Communication etc. The emphasis is on designing ultra-low power systems and algorithms, which primarily are battery less and or use harvested energy. Some of the problems being worked upon are Throughput Maximization, establishing secure communication as well as setting up a low power wake-up system for sensor networks.

Our Research Areas

Energy Harvesting

Tactile Internet

Communication Networks

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