Vibration Energy Harvester Powers Train Sensors

Trains provide a sustainable source of vibration energy to power sensors, at least while they are moving. Testing has shown that the vibration spectra generated by train wheels was sufficient to allow Perpetuum’s energy harvester to generate 10s of mW of electrical energy – a level sufficient to power sensors to monitor the condition of wheel bearings.

Optimized to deliver the highest power output from vibration frequencies between 30Hz – 60Hz that are typical to the rail industry, Perpetuum’s PMG Rail operates in the temperature range from -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F) and has factory programmed voltage outputs from 3V – 10V.

Other monitoring and sensing applications for the PMG RAIL products include:

- Bearing Monitoring

- GPS Location Tracking

- Hazardous Cargo Monitoring (Temperature, Pressure, “Door Open”)

- Wheel Condition Monitoring (Flats, Cracks)

- Derailment

- Braking System Monitoring

For more information about Perpetuum’s PMG RAIL products vibration energy harvesters, click here.

Electromagnetic Vibration Energy Harvesting

Roy Freeland, president of Perpetuum discusses the company’s applications of vibration energy harvesters by well-known companies at Sensors Expo 2011. The company’s products, including its PMG FSH free-standing energy harvester, are used by companies including National Instruments, GE Bently Nevada, Emerson Rosemount, Honeywell, Siemens and more.

For more information about Perpetuum vibration energy harvesters, click here.

To watch the video, click here.

Vibration Energy Harvesting Using Piezoelectronics

Attila Lengyel, chief operations officer for Mide Technology Corp. discusses his company’s Volture vibration energy harvesting technology and an application demo to Randy Frank at Sensors Expo 2011. The Slam Stick vibration recorder measures and stores 3-axis vibration and software available from the company’s website allows users to interpret and analyze the data.

For more information about Mide Technology’s Volture energy harvesters including the Slam Stick demo, click here.

To watch the video, click here.

Thermal Energy Harvesting for Sensors

At Sensors Expo 2011, Robin McCarty, an R&D engineer at marlow industries explains the company’s thermal energy harvesters. The company’s products support water-to-water, water-to-air and solid-to-air thermal energy harvesting.

For more information about marlow industries thermal energy generators, click here.

To watch the video, click here.

Energy Harvesting for Sensing Applications Update

If you are interested in the possibility of using energy harvesting
technology to power a wireless sensor network, there are few tools that you should consider to determine if this can make a difference in your next system design.

The 308-page book, Energy Harvesting for Autonomous Systems written by Stephen Beeby and Neil White of the University of Southampton and published by Artech House within the last year and provides chapters on RFID, photovoltaic, kinetic, and thermoelectric
energy harvesting as well as power management, energy storage and a a case study.

At Sensors Expo 2011 in Chicago, the Energy Harvesting
Track on Tuesday and Wednesday provide attendees special insight into the products and their applications from eleven companies.

For those seeking a focused in-depth look at energy
harvesting, the Power Management: Energy Harvesting & Storage Symposium on Monday provides information
from a dozen of the leading energy harvesting companies.

Get Into Energy Harvesting with a Design Kit

All it takes is a sensor to be in the energy harvesting development mode with MicroStrain’s Advanced Pioneer Kit. The kit is based on MicroStrain EH-Link a hybrid energy harvesting wireless sensor node. The node collects energy from multiple sources including strain, vibration, thermal gradients, ambient light and electromagnetic fields. 

The Pioneer Kit includes an EH-Link node, USB Base Station with Antenna, Thermal Electric Generator (TEG), Solar Demo Board, 9-V Alkaline Battery, Battery Clip, EH-Link 1000 ohm Tester Board, and 1000 µF Capacitor as well as Node Commander Software and Manuals CD (Windows® XP, Vista, 7).

For more information including how to order the kit (use the Buy tab), click here.

Using Texas Instruments BQ24210 in Solar Energy Harvesting

Any energy harvesting system requires some level of power management including battery charging. At CES 2011, Jon Beall, product marketing engineer in the Battery Management Solutions Division of Texas Instruments, explains the functionality that the BQ24210 provides to a solar energy system.

To view the video, click  here.

For more information about the BQ24210 800mA, Single-Input, Single Cell Li-Ion Solar Battery Charger, click here.

Customizable Energy Harvesting Development Kit

Microchip and Cymbet have combined forces to offer what is being called the world’s first customizable energy harvesting development kit. The XLP Kit uses Microchip’s PIC24F16KA102 microcontroller with eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology and Cymbet’s EnerChip EH Eval-08 Energy Harvesting Board.  The EH board converts solar to electrical energy and stores it in an EnerChip solid-state, rechargeable energy-storage device. The kit allows users to evaluate a wide variety of system functions, including ZigBee and proprietary wireless connectivity without designing any hardware.

For more information on the XLP 16-bit Energy Harvesting Development Kit, click here.

Sensors Expo 2010 Exhibitors: MicroStrain Energy Harvesting

If you missed Sensors Expo or did not get a chance to check out all the exhibits, here is another of the interesting booths that I visited. Steve Arms from MicroStrain explains energy harvesting powered wireless sensing and the Sensors Expo 2010 Silver Award winning EH-Link. To see the video, click the arrow link below.

For more information about MicroStrain wireless energy harvesting solutions, click here.

Sensors Expo 2010 Exhibitors: Tellurex Corporation and Dexter Research

If you missed Sensors Expo or did not get a chance to check out all the exhibits, here is another of the interesting booths that I visited. Chuck Cauchy from Tellurex and Wayne Baer from Dexter Research explain each company’s role in developing an energy harvesting powered wireless sensor. To see the video, click the arrow link below.

For more information about Tellurex for thermoelectric solutions, click here.

For more information about Dexter Research for wireless sensing solutions, click here.

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