1.

3 Energy Harvesting
Energy harvesting, also known as energy scavenging, (and it has also been suggested that this could be termed an external energy source [60]), has recently attracted huge interest within both the academic community and in industry as a potential solution to powering WSN nodes. This has recently resulted in special issues on the subject in both the IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine [61] and of the Intelligent Materials Systems and Structures Journal (of which the special issue is in-press at the time of writing). There are various sources of energy available for harvesting, and indeed, much work has been presented on generators capable of generating electrical energy from thermal gradients [62 78] including the Seiko Thermic watch [79], solar power [8083], ambient RF [56, 82, 8486], human bodily uids [12] and ow of gasses [87, 88]. The advantages and disadvantages of each type of energy harvesting are discussed thoroughly in [30, 59, 8993] and consequently the arguments will not be repeated here in detail. The general opinion from the literature is that whilst each application should be evaluated individually with regards to nding the best energy harvesting method, harnessing kinetic energy in the form of motion or vibration is generally the most versatile and ubiquitous ambient energy source available. It can also provide a good power density and thus is the most suitable for harvesting [30]. Thermal devices require a temperature gradient in order to generate el ectrical energy, and this is difcult to achieve over the small distances available in miniature generators. Solar devices can achieve relatively high power densities in good light conditions, but they are unsuitable for implantable devices or other low light situations. Consequently, this thesis is concerned with motion-driven micro-generators, which generate electrical energy from a source of kinetic energy, usually a vibration. An introduction to motion-driven micro-generators, and a review of the related published literature will now be presented.

1.4 Motion-Driven Generators

Motion driven micro-generators fall into two categories; those which utilise the direct application of a force to generate electrical energy, and those which make use of inertial forces acting on a proof mass to generate electrical energy. The operating principle of a direct-force generator

21

PSfrag replacements
f (z) k

Zl

z(t )

fdr (t )

Figure 1.1: Generic model of direct-force generator.

is shown in Figure 1.1. In this case, the driving force f dr(t), acts on a mass m, suspended on a spring suspension with spring constant k with a damping element present to provide a force,

f (z), opposing the motion. If the damper is implemented using a suitable transduction mechanism
(details of which follow) then in opposing the motion, energy is converted from mechanical to an electrical form. There are limits of Zl on the displacement of the mass, imposed by practical limitations. Direct force generators can be used where there are two points which move relative to each other that can apply a force on the damper. The operating principle of inertial micro-generators is shown in Figure 1.2. The inertia of a proof mass m, which is suspended on a spring suspension with spring constant k, causes the mass to move relative to the generator frame with relative displacement z(t) when the frame, with displacement

y(t), experiences acceleration. The maximum and minimum values of z(t) are Z l imposed by
the nite size of the generator. Energy is converted when work is done against the damping force

f (z) which opposes the relative motion of the proof mass and the frame. Inertial generators can
be used when only one suitable attachment point is available and that attachment point is used to drive the generator frame. This means that inertial generators are more exible in where they can be mounted than direct-force generators. In order to generate electrical energy, the damper must be implemented by a suitable transducer, capable of converting mechanical energy into an electrical form. This can be done using one of the methods described in the following subsections.

22

PSfrag replacements

k Zl m z(t )

f (z) x(t ) y(t )

Figure 1.2: Generic model of inertial generator.

1.4.1 Electromagnetic
Rotating electromagnetic generators are in common use from power levels of a few watts (brushless DC domestic wind turbine systems), to several hundred mega watts (synchronous machines used for power generation by the utility companies). It is possible to implement the damper of a micro-generator using the same principle, i.e. that described by Faradays law of induction. The principle is illustrated in Figure 1.3. A change of magnetic ux linkage with a coil induces an EMF

v(t) in the coil, driving a current i(t) in the circuit. The combined force f (t) on the moving charges
in the magnetic eld acts to oppose the relative motion which is causing the change in ux linkage, as described by Lenzs law. The mechanical work done against the opposing force is converted to heat in the resistance of the circuit and to stored energy in the magnetic eld associated with the circuit inductance. PSfrag replacements
i(t )

v(t )

f (t )

Hello

z(t )

Figure 1.3: Principle of operation of the electromagnetic transducer.

23

1.4.2 Electrostatic
The second method of converting kinetic energy into electrical energy is through the use of electrostatic forces and there are two possible extremes of operation of an electrostatic transducer. The rst involves moving a xed amount of electric charge through an electric eld and thus increasing the electrical potential of that charge. This is referred to as constant charge operation and is illustrated in gure 1.4(a). For the parallel plate structure with a variable separation and constant overlap (i.e. the horizontal component of z(t) is zero) with a negligible fringing eld, the eld strength is proportional to the (constant) charge and thus the energy density of the electric eld is independent of plate separation. As the electrode separation increases (by doing mechanical work against the attractive force, f (t), between the electrodes in a direction normal to the plates) additional electrical potential energy is stored in the increased volume of electric eld. If the plates are moved relative to each other with a sliding motion at a constant separation ( i.e. the vertical component of z(t) in Figure 1.4(a) is zero), mechanical work is done against the fringing eld and there is an increase in stored electrical energy because the electric eld strength increases with the reduction in plate overlap. The energy density of the eld (proportional to the square of eld strength) increases faster than the volume of the eld decreases. The other extreme of operation is constant voltage operation, illustrated in Figure 1.4(b). Moving the relative positions of the plates (either due to sliding or normal movement) changes the capacitance between the electrodes under a constant voltage. If the plate separation is increased with a xed overlap, the electric eld strength between the plates falls causing charge to be pushed off the plates into an external circuit as a current ow i(t). If the plates are moved with constant separation and changing overlap, the eld strength stays constant, but current is again forced to ow into the source because the volume of the eld decreases. In both cases, the mechanical work done is converted into additional electrical potential energy as an increased space charge in the voltage source. A derivation of the attractive forces between the electrodes of charged capacitors is presented in Appendix A. Because of practical implementation constraints, such as non-zero conductance (in the constant charge case) and non-ideal voltage sources (in the constant voltage case), real electrostatic transducers work somewhere between these two extremes, although in many cases very close to one or other of these limits, and both types have been reported in the literature for implementations of micro-generators. Electrostatic transducers need an initial amount of electrical potential energy in

24

order to provide an electric eld which can be used to generate additional electric energy.
i(t )

PSfrag replacements
+Q +q(t )

PSfrag replacements

v(t ) V E (t ) f (t )
Q

E (t ) V z(t )

f (t )
q(t )

z(t )

(a) Constant charge

(b) Constant voltage

Figure 1.4: Principle of operation of the electrostatic transducer.

1.4.3 Piezoelectric
The piezoelectric effect, explained in more detail in [94], is a phenomenon whereby a strain in a material produces an electric eld across that material and conversely an applied electric eld can produce a mechanical strain. The rst of these modes can be used to realise micro-generators. When the material is strained, some of the mechanical work done on the device is stored as elastic strain energy, and some in the electric eld brought about by the space charge. The effect is illustrated in Figure 1.5. The material is unpolarised when unstrained (i.e. contains no average

space charge across the material), but becomes polarised when strained, so that a net electric eld
is generated.

1.5 Literature Review

Whilst the work in this thesis concentrates on the inertial type of micro-generator because of its increased exibility for attachment over direct -force devices (and thus potential increased exibility for use in powering implanted medical devices), a literature review of both inertial and 25

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