Next-Generation IoT Devices: Sustainable Eco-Friendly Manufacturing, Energy Harvesting, and Wireless Connectivity

TLDR

IoT systems are proliferating across smart cities, wearables, autonomous vehicles, and industry, prompting a shift from cloud‑centric to distributed intelligence that imposes stricter requirements on operating range, latency, and reliability. This invited paper outlines solutions for developing next‑generation IoT devices that are eco‑friendly in manufacturing, sustainably powered, and equipped with low‑power wireless connectivity. The authors review biodegradable and eco‑friendly manufacturing options, energy harvesting and wireless power transfer for sustainable powering, and ultra‑low‑power wireless connectivity that supports batteryless operation.

Abstract

This invited paper presents potential solutions for tackling some of the main underlying challenges toward developing sustainable Internet-of-things (IoT) devices with a focus on eco-friendly manufacturing, sustainable powering, and wireless connectivity for next-generation IoT devices. The diverse applications of IoT systems, such as smart cities, wearable devices, self-driving cars, and industrial automation, are driving up the number of IoT systems at an unprecedented rate. In recent years, the rapidly-increasing number of IoT devices and the diverse application-specific system requirements have resulted in a paradigm shift in manufacturing processes, powering methods, and wireless connectivity solutions. The traditional cloud-centering IoT systems are moving toward distributed intelligence schemes that impose strict requirements on IoT devices, e.g., operating range, latency, and reliability. In this article, we provide an overview of hardware-related research trends and application use cases of emerging IoT systems and highlight the enabling technologies of next-generation IoT. We review eco-friendly manufacturing for next-generation IoT devices, present alternative biodegradable and eco-friendly options to replace existing materials, and discuss sustainable powering IoT devices by exploiting energy harvesting and wireless power transfer. Finally, we present (ultra-)low-power wireless connectivity solutions that meet the stringent energy efficiency and data rate requirements of future IoT systems that are compatible with a batteryless operation.