Energy harvesting technologies for lowpower electronics (original) (raw)
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Design of Energy Harvesting Technology: Feasibility for Low-Power Wireless Sensor Networks
Volume 6: 15th Design for Manufacturing and the Lifecycle Conference; 7th Symposium on International Design and Design Education, 2010
In designing for a system's lifecycle considerations, longterm energy needs often become an important limiting factor. Shifting from conventional energy sources (e.g. fossil fuels) toward renewable sources (e.g. wind and solar) has become a popular means for focusing on the lifecycle of large-scale systems like automobiles and the national electrical grid. This same shift in small, low-power systems such as sensors has the additional advantage of potentially increasing the operational life of the systems. This paper introduces a methodology for determining the feasibility of in situ energy harvesting as a viable power source for a given low-power system. The method is demonstrated by considering a wireless sensor node and the specific application of monitoring the fatigue life of highway bridges, with a target operational life of ten years for the sensor node. Peak and average power requirements for wireless sensor nodes are calculated and compared to the power density available from solar, wind, and vibration energy. Energy storage is also discussed, including both disposable batteries (as the status quo with which to compare energy harvesting) and rechargeable systems (as a necessary component of the energy harvesting system). Solar, wind, and vibration energy are all found to be feasible sources of power for this particular application. Vibration harvesting has lower power density than solar and wind harvesting, but has the advantage of being less dependent on location, more self-contained, and largely maintenance free. Energy harvesting in general only becomes attractive for projected life cycles exceeding the life of disposable batteries, which for this particular application is estimated at 4-6 years. Thus, energy harvesting is an excellent way to extend the lifespan of low-power systems where power availability is the limiting factor.
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.
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.
Significance of Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensor Networks
2014
Wireless Sensor Networks consist of a large number of small in size, low-power but smart sensor nodes are interfacing with one another and deployed over a certain inaccessible geographical area with portable sources like betters having limited power and storage space[1][2]. However, the battery presents several disadvantages required to be replaced or recharge them frequently. One possibility to overcome this power limitations problem is to harvest energy from the ambient limitless available energy sources in the environment surrounding to the sensor nodes are either to recharge batteries or directly use to power the sensor nodes of wireless sensor network. Most of the time, energy harvest from one source is not sufficient to meet the power requirement of sensor nodes. Therefore the hybrid energy harvesting techniques would be a solution to solve the low power problem of wireless sensor nodes. However the energy harvesting process may be irregular, thought there may be a limit on th...
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2017
Harvesting energy from nonconventional sources in the environment has received increased attention over the past decade from researchers who study these alternative energy sources for low power applications. Although that energy harvested is small and in the order of milliwatt, it can provide enough power for wireless sensors and other low-power applications. In the environment there is a lot of wasted energy that can be converted into electricity to power the various circuits and represents a potentially cheap source of power. Energy harvesting is important because it offers an alternative power supply for electronic devices where is does not exist conventional energy sources. This technology applied in a wireless sensor network (WSN) and devices on the IoT, will eliminate the need for networkbased energy and conventional batteries, will minimize maintenance costs, eliminate cables and batteries and is ecological. It has the same advantage in applications from remote locations, underwater, and other hard to reach places where conventional batteries and energy are not suitable. Energy harvesting will promote environmentally friendly technologies that will save energy, will reduce CO2 emissions, which makes this technology indispensable for achieving nextgeneration smart cities and sustainable society. In response to the challenges of energy, in this article we remind the basics of harvesting energy and we discuss the various applications of this technology where traditional batteries cannot be used.
Energy harvesting sensor nodes: Survey and implications
Communications Surveys & Tutorials, …
Sensor networks with battery-powered nodes can seldom simultaneously meet the design goals of lifetime, cost, sensing reliability and sensing and transmission coverage. Energy-harvesting, converting ambient energy to electrical energy, has emerged as an alternative to power sensor nodes. By exploiting recharge opportunities and tuning performance parameters based on current and expected energy levels, energy harvesting sensor nodes have the potential to address the conflicting design goals of lifetime and performance. This paper surveys various aspects of energy harvesting sensor systemsarchitecture, energy sources and storage technologies and examples of harvesting-based nodes and applications. The study also discusses the implications of recharge opportunities on sensor node operation and design of sensor network solutions.
Harvesting Energy-Ultra Low Power Device
2015
Energy harvesting is rapidly expanding into new applications. The idea of micro-scale energy harvesting, and collecting miniscule amounts of ambient energy to power electronic systems, was still visionary and limited to research proposals and laboratory experiments. Ultra-low-power technology is enabling a wide range of new applications that harvest ambient energy in very small amounts and need little or no maintenance-self-sustaining devices that are capable of perpetual or nearly perpetual operation. An increasing number of systems are appearing that take advantage of light, vibrations and other forms of previously wasted environmental energy for applications where providing line power or maintaining batteries is inconvenient. The following article will discuss several technical challenges and show how ultra-low power technology is playing a key role in overcoming them.
A Comprehensive Review of Energy Harvesting Techniques and its Potential Applications
In the recent years, obtaining a sustainable form of energy to power various autonomous wireless and portable devices is increasingly becoming a matter of concern and various alternate sources of energy have been explored. This paper discusses energy harvesting or energy scavenging as an efficient approach to cater to the energy needs of portable electronics. A comparison of various ambient sources for harvesting energy is done and an insight into some applications based on this concept is made. Also discussed are some modifications to the existing harvesting architecture in which the selection of the source is considered as important criteria in designing the energy harvester. This concept can be used to produce variable outputs to power energy requirements of the various systems.
Survey of Energy Harvesting Systems for Wireless Sensor Networks in Environmental Monitoring
Metrology and Measurement Systems, 2016
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have existed for many years and had assimilated many interesting innovations. Advances in electronics, radio transceivers, processes of IC manufacturing and development of algorithms for operation of such networks now enable creating energy-efficient devices that provide practical levels of performance and a sufficient number of features. Environmental monitoring is one of the areas in which WSNs can be successfully used. At the same time this is a field where devices must either bring their own power reservoir, such as a battery, or scavenge energy locally from some natural phenomena. Improving the efficiency of energy harvesting methods reduces complexity of WSN structures. This survey is based on practical examples from the real world and provides an overview of state-of-the-art methods and techniques that are used to create energyefficient WSNs with energy harvesting.
Smart Ultra Low Power Energy Harvesting System
International Journal of Adaptive, Resilient and Autonomic Systems, 2000
Small embedded systems operating in unattended conditions do need to be perpetually powered if a truly pervasive paradigm is envisaged. Harvesting energy from the surrounding environment seems to be the best option. For that, a set of systems has been proposed featuring interesting solutions but not yet capable of overcoming some issues like performance and flexibility. The authors propose a novel design for an environmental energy harvesting power supply that not only can work with multiple energy sources but also can extract the maximum possible energy from them. Additionally, it can provide important information concerning the energy resources of the system. Focusing particularly on the system’s design, the authors present results from a reference implementation that highlight the low wasted power and high efficiency characteristics of the system.