The deployment of industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors across factory floors, smart cities, and power grids faces two constant constraints: Battery maintenance overhead and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The European research initiative LoLiPoP IoT (Long Life Power Platforms for Internet of Things, Horizon Europe / Chips JU Grant #101112286) addressed these challenges by combining multi-source energy harvesting with lightweight, secure software architectures.

The project concluded in Summer 2026 following its final public showcase in Eindhoven.

The Technical Challenge: Security within Micro-Joules

Traditional cryptographic operations, continuous memory protection, and secure logging are computationally expensive and power-hungry. On energy-harvesting IoT nodes (powered by solar, thermal gradient, or kinetic energy), power availability fluctuates continuously. Implementing robust security without exhausting the energy harvester's micro-joule storage buffers required a new approach to runtime software execution.

SYSGO’s Contribution: Energy-aware Security & CRA Compliance

SYSGO provided a lightweight, secure embedded runtime foundation tailored for low-power MPUs and MCUs, focusing on both resource efficiency and regulatory security standards like the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).

1. Power-Aware Separation Kernels: Optimized PikeOS and ELinOS PM (Power Management) subsystems to allow sub-system partitions to enter deep sleep states dynamically, preserving memory separation and root-of-trust state during energy dropouts.
2. EU CRA Compliance Toolkit: Integrated automated Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) generation, secure boot, and remote cryptographic Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA) update mechanisms into the build chain.
3. Adaptive Task Scheduling: Embedded middleware hooks to interface directly with energy-harvesting micro-controllers, enabling the system to schedule non-critical security audits or telemetry uploads only during peak harvested power conditions.

Key Results & Industrial Impact

• 5-Year Operational Lifespan: Industrial sensor nodes achieved an operational lifespan exceeding 5 years (up from ~18 months) using hybrid kinetic and solar energy harvesters coupled with adaptive software execution.
• Hardened Edge Security: Demonstrated resilience against side-channel analysis and fault-injection power-glitch attacks during energy starvation events.
• 12 Pilot Applications: Successfully validated across industrial use cases ranging from structural bridge monitoring to rail predictive maintenance.

Key Publications & Resources

• LoLiPoP IoT Final Showcase Proceedings (Eindhoven, June 2026): "Demonstrating Secure, Energy-Harvesting Edge Platforms in Industry 4.0 Applications"
• EU CORDIS Repository: Grant Agreement #101112286