About the Project

With steady increases in energy costs and the demand for low power devices on the rise, engineers are now looking to tackle the situation with new innovative approaches. Texas Instruments Inc. has proposed a design to implement a Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled gateway to low-power monitoring devices. PoE is an effective mechanism to safely transfer power and data over long distances within the same cable simultaneously. The intended application for this would be to power monitoring devices that interact with wireless sensors within range. To analyze sensor traffic, a web server will be connected within the network to provide ease of access and control. The use of low power wireless protocols is essential in maintaining an efficient energy usage within all nodes of the network. These sensors could be of any application desired by the user, including monitoring devices used for building control, homeland security, medical instruments and agriculture. Using parts and packages from TI, the prototype provides an effective means for monitoring sensor activity, as well as maintaining low cost and low power.