Design of a wind energy harvesting wireless sensor node

Abstract

Wireless sensor network (WSN) has got increasingly in-depth study and application because of its small size, flexible layout, strong reliability and other advantages, but in the mean time the life of a wireless sensor node is heavily dependent on the power supply batteries. This paper studies the design of a wireless sensor node which is powered by a micro wind turbine generator. It adopts an optimal power management to make the node working neutrally: never dies out of energy. This management consists of an AC-DC converter, an energy storage element and a maximum power transfer tracking (MPTT) circuit to sustain the operation of wireless sensor node over a wide range wind conditions. Extensive experimental results show that through the proposed power management, wind energy conversion efficiency improves to 80%, and the harvested power increases three times than before. Thus this wind powered wireless sensor node could work independently and has a good application prospect.