Compact “Energy Harvesting” Technology Equipped with Autonomous Resonance Tuning Mechanism Achieves Stable Power Supply to Small Electronic Devices (IOT Sensors) Through Demonstration
The Internet of Things (IoT) requires independent power sources that are not limited by batteries or power lines, as they need to be installed without worrying about time and space. Energy harvesting technology is a technology that recovers unnecessary energy such as vibration, heat, light, and electromagnetic waves generated in everyday life such as automobiles, buildings, and home appliances, and converts it into electrical energy. Energy harvesters can generate enough power to run small electronic devices by harvesting the energy sources around them without an external power source.
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon) announced that Dr. Hyun-Cheol Song’s research team at the Research Center for Electronic Materials has developed an autonomous resonance tuning (ART) piezoelectric energy harvester. surrounding environment. The developed energy harvester can tune its resonance over a broad band of over 30 Hz and convert the absorbed vibrational energy into electrical energy.
The energy harvesting process that converts vibrations into electrical energy inevitably results in mechanical energy losses that reduce energy conversion efficiency. This problem can be solved by using the resonance phenomenon in which vibration is amplified when the natural frequency of the object and the frequency of vibration match. However, although the energy generator has a fixed natural frequency, the different vibrations we experience on a daily basis have different frequency ranges. For this reason, it was necessary to adjust the natural frequency of the harvester each time in order to resonate with the usage environment, making it difficult to put into practical use.
Therefore, a KIST research team has developed a specially designed energy harvester. This energy harvester can be tuned to the ambient frequency without a separate electrical device. When the energy harvester senses ambient vibrations, an adaptive clamping system (tuning system) attached to the harvester modulates its frequency to the same frequency as the external vibrations, enabling resonance. As a result, we were able to quickly tune the resonance frequency within two seconds and continuously generate power over a wide band of 30Hz or more.
This energy harvester equipped with a tuning system is mounted on a running vehicle to verify the ART function on an actual machine. Unlike the piezoelectric energy harvesters introduced in previous research, we have succeeded in driving a wireless positioning device without a battery in an environment where the vibration frequency changes continuously. Dr. Song (KIST), who led this research, said: In the future, it is expected to be applied as an independent power source for wireless sensors including IOT. ”
Original: Development of self-resonant smart energy harvester
Than: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
