Abstract
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 environmental 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.
Highlights
The continuous increase in the number of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and mobile devices poses important problems in terms of supplying adequate energy to power such devices [1,2]
Different energy sources that can be scavenged to power mobile sensor systems and wireless sensor network nodes will be discussed. Such energy sources are: photovoltaic energy that can be harvested by photovoltaic cells exploiting indoor or outdoor light sources; mechanical energy that can be scavenged by electromagnetic, electrostatic or piezoelectric transducers; thermal energy that can be scavenged from thermal gradients using thermoelectric transducers; radio frequency (RF) energy that can be exploited with two different working principles (RFID, where RF energy source is provided by a dedicated device and the case where the source power is scavenged from RF sources naturally present in the environment); biochemical energy where biofuel cells are used to transform the chemical energy associated with living functions to electrical energy
Power from available energy sources can be scavenged and stored in rechargeable batteries and/or supercapacitors to extend the lifetime of mobile sensor systems and wireless sensor network nodes
Summary
The continuous increase in the number of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and mobile devices poses important problems in terms of supplying adequate energy to power such devices [1,2]. Electronic systems powered by energy harvesting must be designed taking this important characteristic in consideration and must store the scavenged energy when the natural source is present for later use. HSU systems, on the other hand, use some form of energy storage (batteries or supercapacitors) to store the scavenged energy to allow a continuous operation of the sensor system. The paper is organized as follows: in Section 2 the power management techniques used for energy harvesting are reviewed, in Section 3 different transduction principles for energy harvesting and related applications for mobile systems and WSNs are presented, in Section 4 a discussion on open areas of research and challenges associated with energy harvesting for wireless sensor networks and mobile devices is presented.
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