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Structural Electronics 2017-2027: Applications, Technologies, Forecasts
In-mold electronics, smart skin, structural health monitoring, composite smart structures, building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV)
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Structural electronics (SE) is one of the most important technological developments of this century. It forms a key part of the dream, formulated decades ago, of computing disappearing into the fabric of society. It also addresses, in a particularly elegant manner, the dream of Edison in 1880 that electricity should be made where it is needed. SE is often biomimetic - it usefully imitates nature in ways not previously feasible. It is a rapidly growing multi-billion dollar business.
Structural electronics involves electronic and/or electrical components and circuits that act as load-bearing, protective structures, replacing dumb structures such as vehicle bodies or conformally placed upon them. It is of huge interest to the aerospace industry which is usually the first adopter, the automotive industry and in civil engineering both with compelling needs but its reach is much broader even than this. Electric cars badly need longer range and more space for the money and, in civil engineering, corrosion of reinforced concrete structures and tighter requirements for all structures, including early warning of problems, are among the market drivers for structural electronics.
The common factor is that both load bearing and smart skin formats occupy only unwanted space. The electronics and electrics effectively have no volume. More speculatively, electronics and electrics injected into unused voids in vehicle bodies, buildings etc., say as aerogel, could also provide this benefit without necessarily being load bearing but possibly providing other benefits such as heat insulation. Some present and future applications of structural electronics are morphing aircraft using shape memory alloys, car with printed organic light emitting diode OLED lighting on outside and inside of roof and printed photovoltaics over the outside generating electricity supercapacitor skin on an electric car replacing the traction battery as energy storage, smart skin as a nervous system for an aircraft and solar boats and aircraft running on sunshine alone. In London, a piezoelectric smart dance floor generates electricity and smart bridges across the world have sensors and more embedded in their concrete, all forms of structural electronics as it is increasingly the way to go.
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| 1. | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS |
| 1.1. | Introduction |
| 1.1. | Some future applications of structural electronics |
| 1.1. | Global problems in certain applicational sectors |
| 1.2. | Benefits and challenges of structural electronics) |
| 1.2. | Maturity and sophistication of applications of structural electronics by sector showing strong adoption in yellow, intermediate in green and later adoption in magenta |
| 1.2. | What is it? |
| 1.3. | Tackling urgent problems |
| 1.3. | Precursors of structural electronics in yellow, transitioning to established technology in green, and speculative dreams in magenta |
| 1.3. | Benefits of structural electronics in different structures |
| 1.4. | Application patterns in current materials and processes |
| 1.4. | Some possible structures of multilayer multifunctional electronic smart skin |
| 1.4. | Primary benefits |
| 1.5. | Maturity by applicational sector |
| 1.5. | Structural electronics market 2017 globally |
| 1.5. | Criteria for a component to be most suitable for subsuming into SE |
| 1.6. | Some of the benefits of replacing conventional electronic and electric components and dumb structures with structural electronics by applicational sector most needing them |
| 1.6. | Structural electronics market 2027 globally |
| 1.6. | Objectives and benefits |
| 1.7. | Materials and processes currently favoured |
| 1.7. | BIPV global market value US$ billions rounded 2016-2027 |
| 1.7. | Structural electronics market 2017 and 2027 US$ billion globally |
| 1.8. | BIPV global market value US$ billions rounded 2016-2027 |
| 1.8. | Structural electronics market 2017 and 2027 $billion globally, excluding BIPV |
| 1.8. | Smart skin |
| 1.9. | Component types being subsumed |
| 1.9. | Market forecast by component type for 2017-2027 in US $ billions, for printed and potentially printed electronics including organic, inorganic and composites |
| 1.9. | Market forecast by component type for 2017-2027 in US $ billions, for printed and potentially printed electronics including organic, inorganic and composites |
| 1.10. | IDTechEx WSN forecast 2017-2027 with RTLS for comparison |
| 1.10. | Total WSN market forecast 2017-2027 (in $ million) |
| 1.10. | Future proof |
| 1.11. | How to make structural electronics |
| 1.11. | Market forecast for fully printed sensors 2017-2027 (in $ million) |
| 1.11. | Market forecast for fully printed sensors 2017-2027 (in $ million) |
| 1.11.1. | A host of new technologies |
| 1.12. | Market forecasts |
| 1.12. | Maturity of wide variety of energy harvesting technologies and applications |
| 1.12. | Ex-factory value of EVs, in millions of US dollars, sold globally, 2016-2026, by applicational sector, rounded. Excludes 48V mild hybrids which become electric vehicles in later years by having up to four brief pure electric modes |
| 1.13. | Unmanned Aerial Vehicle AUV with embedded and printed structural circuitry |
| 1.13. | Energy harvesting in general |
| 1.14. | Structural as wireless |
| 1.14. | Two examples of new components intended for embedding in load bearing structures |
| 1.15. | Luminescent solar concentrator |
| 1.15. | Components designed for embedding in load-bearing structures. |
| 1.16. | GES Aviation |
| 1.17. | News in 2016 |
| 1.17.1. | Bat-inspired design for Micro Air Vehicles |
| 1.17.2. | TactoTek awarded grant to mass produce injection molded electronics - June 2016 |
| 1.17.3. | Ultra thin solar panels could power wearable technology revolution - June 2016 |
| 1.17.4. | "Morphing" wing could enable more efficient plane manufacturing and flight - November 2016 |
| 1.18. | News in 2017 |
| 1.18.1. | Groundbreaking luminescent solar concentrator technology - August 2017 |
| 2. | APPLICATIONS OF STRUCTURAL ELECTRONICS |
| 2.1. | Aerospace |
| 2.1. | Some applications and potential applications of structural electronics in aerospace |
| 2.2. | One option for stacked patch antenna array in aircraft body |
| 2.2. | Cars |
| 2.2.1. | BMW Germany and Nanyang TU Singapore |
| 2.2.2. | Funding for development of lightweight solar modules on vehicles |
| 2.2.3. | Lamborghini collaborate with MIT on self powering, self healing car |
| 2.3. | Consumer goods and home appliances |
| 2.3. | Smart composite actuator concept |
| 2.4. | Slotted Waveguide Antenna Stiffened Structure SWASS |
| 2.4. | Bridges and buildings |
| 2.4.2. | Multifunctional impossible roof |
| 2.5. | Structural electronics on the ground |
| 2.5. | Strati 3D printed car |
| 2.5.1. | Generating electricity |
| 2.5.2. | Sensing |
| 2.6. | Solar Roads |
| 2.6. | Some applications and potential applications of structural electronics in cars |
| 2.6.1. | SolaRoad Netherlands |
| 2.7. | Hanergy, Tesla and BYD |
| 2.7. | Supercapacitor car bodywork replaces traction batteries experimentally |
| 2.8. | Supercapacitor car trunk lid, experimental |
| 2.8. | Wave power |
| 2.9. | Printed OLED lighting on and under car roof plus printed organic photovoltaics on the roof all as integrated structural electronics in a Daimler concept car |
| 2.10. | Swedish company Midsummer are developing lightweight solar modules for vehicles |
| 2.11. | New design concept "Lamborghini of the Terzo Millennio" |
| 2.12. | Some applications and potential applications of structural electronics in consumer goods and home appliances |
| 2.13. | Some applications and potential applications of structural electronics in bridges and buildings |
| 2.14. | Optimising setting of concrete using embedded sensors and sensors monitoring seismic damage and deterioration |
| 2.15. | Structural photovoltaics |
| 2.16. | Example of a solar road |
| 2.17. | SolaRoad pilot road opened in late 2014 in the Netherlands |
| 2.18. | Hanergy EIV car launch mid 2016. |
| 2.19. | Electroactive polymer generator EAP using dielectric elastomer and flexible electrodes in smart fabric for wave power |
| 3. | KEY FORMATS AND ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES |
| 3.1. | Basics |
| 3.1. | Key formats and some key enabling technologies for structural electronics |
| 3.1. | Enabling technologies for present and future structural electronics |
| 3.2. | Some of the enabling technologies for structural electronics and relationships between them |
| 3.2. | Detailed analysis |
| 3.3. | NASA leading the way |
| 3.3. | European Commission project EARPA integrating electrics and electronics with structure of an electric vehicle |
| 3.4. | NASA nanotechnology roadmaps |
| 3.4. | Early progress at plastic electronic |
| 3.5. | NASA nanomaterials roadmap |
| 3.6. | NASA nanosensor roadmap |
| 3.7. | NASA biomimetics and bio-inspired systems |
| 3.8. | Project status at plastic electronic for different application segments |
| 4. | SMART SKIN |
| 4.1. | Description |
| 4.1. | Supercapacitor smart skin on copper conducting wire or cable |
| 4.1. | Example of demonstrated or in production (in grey) and envisaged (in green) smart skin for inanimate objects and examples of organisations involved. Largest value markets in 2025 in red. Total market will be at the billions of dol |
| 4.2. | NASA SansEC open coil arrays as aircraft smart skin compared with metal mesh |
| 4.2. | HPP structure |
| 4.2. | Wire and cable smart cladding |
| 4.3. | Many other examples |
| 4.3. | HPP envisaged application in buildings |
| 4.3. | Composites to electronic composites: objectives, achievements, future prospects 1940-2030 |
| 4.3.1. | Hybrid Piezo Photovoltaic Harvesting |
| 4.4. | NASA open coil arrays as electronic smart skin |
| 4.4. | Envisaged marine application of HPP |
| 4.5. | NASA Sans EC open coil arrays (a) placed on aircraft (b) as array of laminar open circuit coils and (c) the shape of a typical coil used |
| 4.5. | American Semiconductor CLAS systems |
| 4.6. | BAE Systems UK: smart skin for aircraft then cars and dams |
| 4.6. | American Semiconductor CLAS for aircraft |
| 4.7. | Flex ICs |
| 4.7. | Graphene composite may keep wings ice-free |
| 4.8. | Composites evolve to add electronic functionality |
| 4.8. | Conformally attached FleX IC prototype with direct write flexible interconnects |
| 4.8.1. | Reasons, achievements, timeline 1940-2030 |
| 4.9. | Prototype smart skin |
| 4.10. | FleX transparent, thin, flexible CMOS |
| 4.11. | Envisioned production process for smart skin: conductor, insulator, simple display, power and flexibly mounted chips |
| 4.12. | Planned UAV trial of FleX smart skin |
| 5. | SOME KEY ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES |
| 5.1. | Smart materials |
| 5.1. | Fiat car of the future |
| 5.1. | Examples of smart materials and their functions, challenges and potential uses in structural electronics |
| 5.1.1. | Comparisons, uses |
| 5.1.2. | Fiat car of the future |
| 5.2. | Printed and flexible electronics |
| 5.2. | Printed electronics power module developed under the European Community FACESS project |
| 5.2.1. | Introduction and examples |
| 5.2.2. | Basic printed modules |
| 5.2.3. | Bendable then conformal photovoltaics |
| 5.2.4. | Printed electronics in structural electronics |
| 5.3. | 3D printing |
| 5.3. | Types of early win and longer term project involving printed electronics 1995-2025 |
| 5.3.1. | New materials |
| 5.3.2. | Adding electronic and electrical functions |
| 5.3.3. | The future |
| 5.3.4. | Printed graphene batteries |
| 5.4. | Spray on solar cells |
| 5.4. | The Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) at the Shell Eco Marathon competition 2014 and other earlier solar cars |
| 5.5. | Cosmetic 3DP on structure |
| 5.5. | Multi-step drop-casting of conformal film |
| 5.6. | Origami zippered tube |
| 5.6. | Harvard 3DP battery |
| 5.7. | Hype curve of 3DP applications |
| 5.7. | Smallest synthetic lattice in the world |
| 5.8. | Origami zippered tube |
| 6. | STRUCTURAL SUPERCAPACITORS AND BATTERIES |
| 6.1. | Many forms of structural supercapacitor |
| 6.1. | PRISS (PRIntable Solid-State battery), |
| 6.1.1. | Queensland UT supercap car body |
| 6.1.2. | Vanderbilt University structural supercapacitor |
| 6.1.3. | Imperial College London/ Volvo structural supercapacitor for car |
| 6.2. | Fundamentals |
| 6.3. | Structural batteries and fuel cells |
| 6.4. | Batteries made out of fabric |
| 6.5. | Printable solid-state Lithium-ion batteries |
| 7. | BUILDING INTEGRATED PHOTOVOLTAICS (BIPV) |
| 7.1. | Examples of BIPV |
| 7.1. | History |
| 7.1. | BIPV vs traditional PV on buildings |
| 7.2. | Examples of developers of TFPV |
| 7.2. | Definition and reason for new interest |
| 7.2. | Assessment of organic photovoltaics and alternatives for buildings. |
| 7.3. | DSSC niche product concepts |
| 7.3. | Evolution |
| 7.4. | Comparison of options now and in future |
| 7.4. | Heliatek solar film |
| 7.5. | A building material that simultaneously functions as a photovoltaic cell |
| 7.5. | Rigid to flexible to conformal and stretchable |
| 7.6. | OPV and DSSC compared |
| 7.6. | BIPVT panel |
| 7.6.1. | Slow rollout |
| 7.6.2. | Smartflex Solar Facades |
| 7.7. | Dye Sensitised Solar Cells for BIPV |
| 7.7. | BIPVT System |
| 7.7.1. | Dye Solar Cell Technology |
| 7.7.2. | Sandia Laboratories |
| 7.7.3. | Saule, Poland |
| 7.8. | Latest CIGS progress |
| 7.9. | Huge improvement possible |
| 7.10. | Solar - take-off soon; dominance 2050 |
| 7.11. | Heat energy storage device |
| 7.12. | White solar panels vanish into buildings |
| 7.13. | World's first BIOPV concrete façade installation |
| 7.14. | Successful start of pilot project for energy self-sufficient air dome |
| 7.15. | Concrete delivers solar energy |
| 7.16. | Non-toxic and cheap thin-film solar cells |
| 7.17. | Building integrated photovoltaic thermal (BIPVT) |
| 8. | COMPANY PROFILES |
| 8.1. | Spectrolab roadmap for multilayer cells |
| 8.1. | Boeing, USA |
| 8.2. | Canatu, Finland |
| 8.2. | Faradair BEHA |
| 8.3. | Odyssian technology that structurally integrates flex circuits and/or printed polymer circuits into conventional or composite structure often including conventional PCBs. |
| 8.3. | Faradair Aerospace UK |
| 8.4. | Local Motors, USA |
| 8.4. | Example of military structural health monitoring |
| 8.5. | Envisaged applications |
| 8.5. | Neotech, Germany |
| 8.6. | Odyssian Technology, USA |
| 8.6. | Technology and process |
| 8.7. | Capacitive touch controls and animated LEDs incorporated in plastic product cover. |
| 8.7. | Optomec USA |
| 8.8. | Paper Battery Co., USA |
| 8.8. | Printed circuits, capacitive buttons and touch screen behind a device cover |
| 8.9. | Pavegen smart paving, UK |
| 8.10. | Soligie, USA |
| 8.11. | TactoTek, Finland |
| 8.11.1. | Sabic |
| 8.11.2. | Panasonic |
| 8.11.3. | Hitachi Chemical |
| 8.11.4. | Heraeus PEDOT |
| 8.11.5. | GGI International |
| 8.11.6. | Moldable molecular ink |
| 8.11.7. | Thermoformable metal mesh |
| 8.11.8. | Toyobo |
| 8.11.9. | Various |
| 8.12. | T-Ink, USA |
| 9. | RECENT INTERVIEWS |
| 9.1. | Taiyo Yuden comparison of its symmetrical electrochemical double layer capacitors |
| 9.1. | Prof Jennifer Lewis' Group at Harvard University and Voxel8 |
| 9.2. | Supercapacitor company visits in late 2014 |
| 9.2. | Solar boats in Taiwan |
| 9.2.1. | DuPont, Nippon ChemiCon |
| 9.2.2. | Taiyo Yuden |
| 9.3. | Photovoltaics and OLED company visits in late 2014 |
| 9.3. | Kaneka structural photovoltaics |
| 9.4. | Kaneka OLED lighting panels showing transparency when not switched on - you see the wood etc on which they are mounted |
| 9.5. | Kaneka OLED panels switched on under glasses |
| IDTECHEX RESEARCH REPORTS AND CONSULTING | |
| TABLES | |
| FIGURES |
A business of tens of billions of dollars within the coming decade
Report Statistics
| Pages | 186 |
|---|---|
| Tables | 19 |
| Figures | 83 |
| Forecasts to | 2027 |
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