Review of non-resonant vibration based energy harvesters for wireless sensor nodes

Abstract

Advancement in technology has reduced the size and power consumption of wireless sensor nodes (WSNs), which leads to the possibility of a battery's replacement with alternative power sources, such as energy harvesters. For WSNs, harvesting energy from ambient vibration has great promise. This paper reports on the recent advancements in the development of vibration-based, non-resonant energy harvesters (NR-EHs). Based on the transduction mechanism, non-resonant electromagnetic energy harvesters (NR-EMEHs), non-resonant electrostatic energy harvesters (NR-ESEHs), and non-resonant piezoelectric energy harvesters (NR-PEEHs) have been successfully developed and reported. The frequency band of NR-EMEHs, NR-ESEHs, and NR-PEEHs is 0.5 to 140 Hz, 85 to 100 Hz, and 5 to 120 Hz, respectively. Moreover, these NR-EHs are subjected from low to high acceleration levels (0.102 to 16.1 g) during characterization. The overall size of the produced NR-EHs is in meso scale. The power generation of the reported NR-EMEHs is in the range from 0.75 to 2200 μW. NR-ESEHs are reported to produce power from 0.7 to 35.3 μW; however, the power production by the developed NR-PEEHs ranges from 3 to 18.5 μW. These NR-EHs are shown to produce power densities from 0.01103 to 8461.54 μW/cm3 which are reasonably sufficient to operate most of the commercially available wireless acceleration sensor nodes.