Analysis of Energy Harvesters for Powering a Wireless Sensor Node Device (original) (raw)

Solar Energy Harvesting And Power Management For Self Powered Wireless Temperature Sensor

2015

Now a day’s temperature monitoring of buildings is essential for controlling the ambient temperature for human safety, comfort and reliability. Wireless sensors are best choices for such temperature monitoring. But greatest challenge faced by wireless sensor networks is power. When a sensor is depleted of power, it can not fulfill its role unless and until the source of power is replenished. Therefore, it is considered that the smartness of a wireless sensor expires when its battery power is finished. In temperature monitoring applications, sensors are supposed to operate for much longer durations (such as years or decades) after they are installed on the field. In such cases batteries are hard (or impossible) to replace or recharge after they are discharged. To overcome this, system has been implemented which scavenges energy from ambient solar energy and stores it in super-capacitor for further use. Harvested energy is made sufficient for sensor operation using power management te...

AN INVESTIGATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SOLAR-THERMAL BASED HYBRID ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEM FOR WSN

IAEME PUBLICATION, 2021

Various energy harvesting techniques e.g. solar, thermal, wind, etc. are the auxiliary solutions to the depleted battery of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Nodes. Hybrid Energy Harvesting (HEH) is the technique to harvest energy from more than one renewable/non-renewable energy sources. In this paper, a thermal and solar energy source based hybrid energy harvesting system has been deeply investigated and implemented to test the feasibility of providing perpetual life time to the sensor node. A mechanical and electrical schematic has been proposed for the HEH system. This is noticed that at day time the energy from the solar light is dominating while at night time thermoelectric energy harvester can provide energy. In the results from thermal modeling, it is found that for a load of 5Ω, maximum power is generated and an increase in ΔT increases the generated energy exponentially and the results drawn from the solar modeling show that increasing the solar irradiance (G) increases the output power. The capacitor gets fully charged in 15minutes (approx.) and the battery gets fully charged in 3hours (approx.).

Energy Harvesting Strategies for Wireless Sensor Networks and Mobile Devices: A Review

MDPI Electronics, 2021

Wireless sensor network nodes and mobile devices are normally powered by batteries that, when depleted, must be recharged or replaced. This poses important problems, in particular for sensor nodes that are placed in inaccessible areas or biomedical sensors implanted in the human body where the battery replacement is very impractical. Moreover, the depleted battery must be properly disposed of in accordance with national and international regulations to prevent envi-ronmental pollution. A very interesting alternative to power mobile devices is energy harvesting where energy sources naturally present in the environment (such as sunlight, thermal gradients and vibrations) are scavenged to provide the power supply for sensor nodes and mobile systems. Since the presence of these energy sources is discontinuous in nature, electronic systems powered by energy harvesting must include a power management system and a storage device to store the scavenged energy. In this paper, the main strategies to design a wireless mobile sensor system powered by energy harvesting are reviewed and different sensor systems powered by such energy sources are presented.

A Novel Thermoelectric energy harvester for Wireless Sensor Network Application

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2018

Energy harvesting using thermoelectric generator has been a challenging task. Thermoelectric energy generator modules for energy harvesting in low power application or Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) node has been modeled, designed, fabricated and analyzed. These modules can be used in number of application for energy generation such as WSN for environmental monitoring, low power IoT based applications, etc. where temperature gradient exist such as desserts, equatorial forests areas etc. to industrial application like engines, hot air pipes, chimneys etc. Researchers have proposed such modules for static thermal conditions. We have proposed a novel thermoelectric energy harvesting system which is intelligent and is for dynamic thermal conditions. The module proposed is cost effective and has simplified structure. The system is able to create a maximum of 23oC temperature difference and hence able to harvest 0.45W of maximum output power. For this only 60g of water is required for achieving temperature gradient.

Energy Harvester for Wireless Sensor with RFID Interface

– a mobile device for the environmental temperature and humidity monitoring has been developed. The device is powered from two sources – battery and energy harvester. Environmental parameters are transferred to an external computer by means of RFID link. This communication system does not require any external power supply that extends battery lifetime depending on the data acquisition rate. The harvesting system taking energy from mains wires has been assessed and proposed as a possible solution to a further extend the battery lifetime. Proposed harvester construction is based on collapsible current transformers made of a standard power inductor and additional magnetic circuit part.

Feasibility of Harvesting Solar Energy for Self-Powered Environmental Wireless Sensor Nodes

Electronics, 2020

Energy harvesting has a vital role in building reliable Environmental Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSNs), without needing to replace a discharged battery. Solar energy is one of the main renewable energy sources that can be used to efficiently charge a battery. This paper introduces two solar energy harvesters and their power measurements at different light conditions in order to charge rechargeable AA batteries powering EWSN nodes. The first harvester is a primitive energy harvesting circuit that is built using elementary off-shelf components, while the second harvester is based on a commercial boost converter chip. To prove the effectiveness of harvesting solar energy, five EWSN nodes were distributed at a nature reserve (the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, USA) and the sunlight at their locations was recorded for more than five months. For each recorded illumination, the corresponding harvested energy has been estimated and compared with the average energy consumption of t...

1.2 Evaluation of Energy Harvesting Devices for Industrial Applications

Proceedings - ettc2020, 2020

The use of energy harvesting devices (EHDs), such as solar cells and thermoelectric generators, offers a promising opportunity for powering self-sufficient wireless devices. This becomes more important due to the miniaturization of electronic components and the resulting reduction in power consumption of integrated circuits. As a result, wiring and maintenance costs can be reduced or possibly omitted at all. However, the available output power of EHDs is highly dependent on the mounting location as well as on environmental conditions and may vary greatly over time. Therefore, it is meaningful to evaluate the EHDs at the location of use over a certain period of time in order to characterize them in real world scenarios. In this paper, we present a mobile and wireless measurement system for the characterization of EHDs. The measurement system enables the acquisition of different EHDs' characteristics for specific applications under various environmental conditions. This simplifies the selection of a suitable EHD and the design process of an energy management system for a particular application. An evaluation of the implemented measurement system has been carried out by characterizing a specific solar cell at different illumination levels for an industrial application.

COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF ENERGY HARVESTING TECHNIQUES FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY IN LOW POWER APPLICATIONS

INTERNATIONALJOURNALOFINNOVATIVEENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE (ijiets) ISSN: 2533-7365. A Publication of Faculty of Engineering Chukwuemeka, 2022

Basically, in the field of electronic engineering, small amount of energy is needed to power electronic devices and so batteries have been the conventional source of energy for most electronic devices. These include devices for mobile communication, real timedata acquisition, embedded and remote monitoring system applications. Nevertheless, batteries have issues of limited capacity, access to power supply sources for recharging, battery lifetime and replacement among other issues. In essence, with technological advancement in the fields of embedded systems; AdHoc Sensor Networks such as mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), wireless sensor networks (WSN), Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) and low power electronics such as MEMS and NEMS, have necessitated the need to exploresustainable and ubiquitous forms of energy as an alternative to the conventional battery. There is therefore need for electronic systems to have high energy retention capacity, self energy generating ability and sustainable source of energy for sustained operation. This feat can be achieved by exploring and tapping ambient energy sources such as thermal, light, RF and mechanical energies available in the environment. The process of extracting and transforming energy from the environment into useful electric energy is called energy harvesting (EH) or Energy Scavenging. This paper presents a survey of various energy harvesting techniques and the observable and available promising opportunities offered. It also explored the various sources of energy harvesting available in the ambience, unfolds the corresponding transducers for ambient energy transformation, reveals several transduction techniques and identifies issues and challenges of energy harvesting. The application areas of harvested energy and desirable properties of energy harvesting and application circuits were also enumerated for informed decision making and application to current trends in energy harvesting.

An efficient solar energy harvester for wireless sensor nodes

2008

Solar harvesting circuits have been recently proposed to increase the autonomy of embedded systems. One key design challenge is how to optimize the efficiency of solar energy collection under non stationary light conditions. This paper proposes a scavenger that exploits miniaturized photovoltaic modules to perform automatic maximum power point tracking at a minimum energy cost. The system adjusts dynamically to the light intensity variations and its measured power consumption is less than 1mW.

Efficient solar energy harvester for wireless sensor nodes

2010

Solar harvesting circuits have been recently proposed to increase the autonomy of embedded systems. One key design challenge is how to optimize the efficiency of solar energy collection under non stationary light conditions. This paper proposes a scavenger that exploits miniaturized photovoltaic modules to perform automatic maximum power point tracking at a minimum energy cost. The system adjusts dynamically to the light intensity variations and its measured power consumption is less than 1mW.