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Pedro Rodrigues from Portugal has been named the Live EDGE (Electronic Design for the Global Environment Challenge) 2008 winner. Rodrigues was awarded a prize package including a $25,000 and support services valued at an additional $25,000 from experts in the fields of design consultancy, marketing, legal and commerce to drive the design towards production. Rodrigues' winning design is an Intelligent Standby Energy Saver: a system that uses an intelligent algorithm to automatically detect the standby mode of electrical equipment and disconnect the power when it is not required. Live EDGE is sponsored by Premier Farnell, a European multi-channel, high-service electronics distributor.

"This unique power controller design analyses power consumption using an artificial intelligence algorithm implemented on a high-end micro-controller," said Rodrigues.'"This enables the Intelligent Standby Energy Saver to distinguish between the 'standby' and 'non-standby' modes even when faced with complex consumption patterns and, thus disconnect the load. The device has sensors that detect changes in the environment and intelligently restore power, when required."

Power savings are achieved by the intelligent control of power to such consumer items as televisions and entertainment systems, whereby the accumulated 'standby' power is effectively reduced.

"The Intelligent Standby Energy Saver design takes a radically different and technically superior approach to determining power usages," said Sir Peter Gershon, Chairman of Premier Farnell and Live EDGE judge. "The idea of using a neural network algorithm to accomplish Mr. Rodrigues' energy saving design is original and clearly more efficient than conventional energy savings methods."

The 2007 Live EDGE winner, John Noble has already taken his design through to completion and anticipates having the product ready for distribution later this year.

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