• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.198-203
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• 2013

Energy harvesting refers to converting ambient energy from our surroundings, which would be otherwise wasted, into useful electrical energy. A triboelectric energy harvester is a self-charged device for harnessing mechanical energy based on a coupled process of contact charging and electrostatic induction. In this research, we demonstrate simple fabrication of prototype triboelectric energy harvester using soft lithography and its electrical characterization. Triboelectric generation occurs between the two micro patterned layers of Au and PDMS. A micro pattern is simply replicated directly from the bottom layer to the top layer using soft-lithography without an extra transfer process. This generator can produce an output voltage of 2 V and output current of 20 nA.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.637-644
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• 2010

A vibration-powered piezoelectric energy harvester yields the maximum power output when its resonant frequency is made equal to the excitation frequency; however, the power output is dramatically decreased when the energy harvester is operated at off-resonance frequency. It has been observed that the resonant frequency of a piezoelectric energy harvester may change with time and that the excitation frequency often varies when the energy harvester is used in real applications. Hence, in this study, we propose a piezoelectric energy-harvesting module that is suitable for excitations in a certain frequency range. The frequency characteristics of the electrical output of the module are studied through analysis and experiment. A simple frequency tuning method is also suggested for the proposed energy-harvesting module; in this method, frequency tuning is achieved by changing the electrical connections between the constituent energy-harvesting units of the module.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.983-989
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• 2013

This study proposes a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester composed of two diagonally segmented energy harvesting units. An auxiliary structural unit is attached to the tip of a host structural unit cantilevered to a vibrating base, where the two components have beam axes in opposite directions from each other and matched short-circuit resonant frequencies. Contrary to the usual observations in two resonant frequency-matched structures, the proposed structure shows little eigenfrequency separation and yields a mode sequence change between the first two modes. These lead to maximum power generation around a specific frequency. By using commercial finite element software, it is shown that the magnitude of the output power from the proposed vibration energy harvester can be substantially improved in comparison with those from conventional cantilevered energy harvesters with the same footprint area and magnitude of a tip mass.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.499-505
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• 2015

To properly design and assess a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, it is necessary to consider the application of an efficiency measure of energy conversion. The energy conversion efficiency is defined in this work as the ratio of the electrical output power to the mechanical input power for a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester with an impedance-matched load resistor. While previous research works employed the electrical output power for approximate impedance-matched load resistance, this work derives an efficiency measure considering optimally matched resistance. The modified efficiency measure is validated by comparing it with finite element analysis results for piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters with three different values of the electro-mechanical coupling coefficient. New findings on the characteristics of energy conversion and conversion efficiency are also provided for the two different impedance matching methods.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.45-46
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• 2017

본 논문에서는 간섭신호가 존재하는 무선 에너지 중계 네트워크 환경에서 중계 노드의 에너지 수확률을 결정하는 TSR 기반 에너지 하베스팅 기법의 성능을 향상시키기 위하여 간섭을 고려한 전송채널 분석 모델과 에너지 하베스팅 최적화 기법을 제안한다. 특히, 간섭 신호를 고려한 최적의 수신기 모드 스위칭 메커니즘 설계를 위한 최적의 에너지 수확률(energy harvesting ratio) 결정 기법을 제안하여 RF 에너지 하베시팅 시스템의 처리율을 최대화 할 수 있도록 하였다.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.435-444
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• 2011

The development of ubiquitous healthcare technology and portable electronic devices requires new energy sources for providing continuous power supply. This study particularly focuses on an energy harvesting system capable of charging energy using clothing. One of the sources for energy harvesting is heat energy, which is the difference in temperature of the body and the surrounding environment. In this study, the skin temperature distribution of the human body was empirically measured to determine the basic materials needed to develop heat energy harvesting clothing. The distribution of skin temperature in different sections of the human body was analyzed. The analysis found that the skin temperature of the upper body was higher than that of the lower body. The area close to the heart with a lot of blood flow was especially high. The skin temperature of the back side of the body, such as the back of the neck, upper back, and waist, was higher than that of the front side of the body. As for the arms, the skin temperature of the upper arms was higher than that of the lower arms, and the skin temperature of the back side of the arms was lower than that of the front and the flank side of the arms. The difference in the average skin temperature and the environment temperature was highest at the back of the neck, and thereby is considered to be the most appropriate section to integrate the heat energy harvesting function and structure. The following sections had the next highest difference in values, listed in descending order: the back of the waist, the sides of shoulders, the front chest area, the front side of the upper arms, and the front abdomen. Based on the skin temperatures of the different sections of the human body, this study outlines the basic guidelines for developing heat energy harvesting clothing.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.47-56
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• 2012

Bicycle has a large amount of kinetic energy available for energy harvesting technology in its speedy and balanced riding movement. Systematic and realistic analysis of its dynamic property is essential to improve the efficiency of energy harvester. However, there has not been enough researches about precise measurement or analysis of bicycle dynamics on real roads. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of vibrational movement of bicycle using MEMS-based accelerometer and to develop a prototype of electromagnetic energy harvester with nonlinear behavior which is proper to the random vibrations accompanied in bicycle riding. The vibrational components have average magnitude of 1 g and turn out to be independent of riding speed. The developed prototype of energy harvester was installed on a front port of a bicycle to use this ambient vibration and generated an average electrical power of 1.5 mW which is enough to support power for most of portable sensors and short range radio-frequency communication. Further study about isolation of vibration from a rider and conversion efficiency is ongoing. The developed energy harvester is expected to be a platform technology for sustainable portable power supply for various smart IT devices and applications.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.29-36
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• 2022

Existing IoT sensor nodes operate by receiving energy from a battery. But due to the characteristics of sensor nodes that are widely distributed for collecting various information, there is a disadvantage that the battery needs to be periodically replaced. In order to overcome this disadvantage, energy can be harvested from sunlight or high-temperature steam through an energy harvesting system. However, since the harvested power is quite limited, it is difficult to use applications that require instantaneous high power such as communication. We propose the design of the high-power energy harvesting system where a switch control unit compensates for the limited harvested energy with the energy storage device such as a capacitor. To verify the proposed system, an energy harvesting system based on sunlight was implemented, and we confirmed the maximum supply power to the application and the maximum supply time according to capacity of the energy storage device.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.4A
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• pp.287-293
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• 2011

This paper investigates the applicability of a piezoelectric cantilever for energy supply of wireless sensor node used in structural health monitoring of bridges. By combining the constitutive equation of piezoelectric material and the dynamic equation of cantilever structure, the coupled governing equation for cantilever equipped piezoelectric patches has been addressed in matrix form. Forced excitation tests were carried out to validate the numerical model and to investigate the power output characteristics of the energy harvester. From the numerical simulation based on the measured bridge accelerations under KTX, Saemaul, Mugunghwa trains, the peak powers generated from the device were found to be 28.5 mW, 0.65 mW, 0.51 mW respectively. It is revealed from the results that bridge vibrations caused by moving loads is not a practical source for energy harvesting because of its low acceleration level, low frequency and short duration.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.284-291
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• 2010

A simulation modeling for predicting the harvesting date with high potato solids consists of development of mathematical models. The mathematical model on potato growth and its development should be obtained by using agricultural elements which analyze relations of solar radiation quantity, temperature, photon quantity, carbon dioxide exchange rate, water stress and loss, relative humidity, light intensity, and wind etc. But more reliable way to predict harvesting date against climatic change employs in vivo energy consumption for growth and induction shape in a slight environmental adaptation. Therefore, to calculate in vivo energy loss, we take a concept of estimate of the amount of basal metabolism in each tuber on the basis of $Wm={\int}^m_tf(x)dt$ and $Tp=\frac{Tm{\cdot}Wm^{Tp}}{Wm^{Tm}}$. In the validation experiments, results of measuring solid accumulation of potato harvested at simulated date agreed fairly well with the actual measured values in each regional field during the growth period of 2005-2009. The calculation method could be used to predict an appropriate harvesting date for a production of high potato solids according to weather conditions.