• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.25 no.B
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• pp.141-147
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• 2005

A target of this paper is to get some elementary experimental data on the energy harvesting using a piezoelectric material. A THUNDER series piezo material (TH7-R), which has been developed by NASA engineer is selected for this study. In order to provide a mechanical energy to the piezoelectric material, a mechanical motion vibrator and its driving electronics are designed. Using a simple PWM control, the excitation frequency of vibrating mechanical motion is varied. The generated electric power as a function of the excitation frequency is monitored and analyzed. This initial experiment shows a possible energy source using a piezoelectric material for the application to low-power consumed small electronic devices such as RFID, MEMS, and etc.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.560-565
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• 2011

This paper proposes the design of micro energy harvesting system by using thermoplastic polyurethane(TPU), which harvests electric energy from the kinetic energy of pedestrian and drives the desired load, and applied it to the self-generating shoes. Also, we designed the buck-boost converter in discontinuous conduction mode(DCM) which functions as a resistor emulator(RE) such that converter's average input current is proportional to input voltage, and it results in transfer of maximum power to buck-boost converter according to control behavior that converter's input resistance is matched with TPU's internal resistance. Therefore, this paper confirms the validity of proposed control scheme and possibility of application for self-generating shoes, from the obtained characteristic of designed micro energy harvesting system by using a TPU and buck-boost converter in DCM.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.579-587
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• 2017

Spaceborne cryocoolers produce undesirable micro-vibration disturbances during their on-orbit operation, which are a primary source of image-quality degradation for high-resolution observation satellites. Therefore, to comply with the strict mission requirement of high-quality image acquisition, micro-vibration disturbances induced by cooler operation have always been subjected to an isolation objective. However, in this study, we focused on the applicability of energy harvesting technology to generate electrical energy from micro-vibration energy of the cooler and investigated the feasibility of utilizing harvested energy as a power source to operate low-power-consumption devices such as micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) devices. A tuned mass damper (TMD)-type electromagnetic energy harvester combined with a conventional passive vibration isolator was proposed to achieve this objective. The system performs the dual functions of electrical energy generation and micro-vibration isolation. The effectiveness of the strategy was evaluated through numerical simulations.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3506-3511
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• 2007

The energy harvesting using smart materials has been extensively investigated to supply electric power to wireless sensor systems. In this paper, the energy harvesting using eddy current was studied with the integrated magnetic cantilever beam system. If a large conductive metal plate moves through a magnetic field which intersects perpendicularly to the sheet, the magnetic field will induce small rings of current which will actually create internal magnetic fields opposing the change. This eddy current that was induced in the coiled conductive sheet from the mechanical vibration was converted to chemical energy by charging batteries. The experimental results show that the eddy current generated the electric power up to max 31.2mW. Additionally the vibration reduction of the mechanical cantilever beam was observed by the energy dissipation in the electro-magnetic coupled system. The present result shows that the vibration level of the first natural frequency was reduced up to 7.7dB

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.81-89
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• 2008

This paper is concerned with the development of the piezoelectric energy harvesting(PEH) device for ubiquitous sensor node(USN). The USN needs auxiliary power to lengthen its operational life. In this study, the piezoelectric energy harvesting system consisting of a cantilever with a tip mass and piezoelectric wafer was investigated in detail both theoretically and experimentally. The dynamic model for the addressed system was derived using the assumed mode method. The resulting equations of motion were expressed in matrix form, which had never been developed before. The power output characteristics of the PEH was then calculated and discussed. Various experiments were carried out to investigate the charging characteristics of electrical components. Theoretical and experimental results showed that the PEH was able to charge a battery with ambient vibrations but still needed an effective mechanism which can convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and an optimal electric circuit which dissipates small energy.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.632-641
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• 2008

This paper is concerned with the development of the piezoelectric energy harvesting(PEH) device for ubiquitous sensor node(USN). The USN needs auxiliary power to lengthen its operational life. In this study, the piezoelectric energy harvesting system consisting of a cantilever with a tip mass and piezoelectric wafer was investigated in detail both theoretically and experimentally. The dynamic model for the addressed system was derived using the assumed mode method. The resulting equations of motion were expressed in matrix form, which had never been developed before. The power output characteristics of the PEH was then calculated and discussed. Various experiments were carried out to investigate the charging characteristics of electrical components. Theoretical and experimental results showed that the PEH was able to charge a battery with ambient vibrations but still needed an effective mechanism which can convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and an optimal electric circuit which dissipates small energy.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2001

Experiments under the stationary and harvesting condition, were performed in order to investigate the vibration characteristics of a head-feeding combine. 6 degrees of freedom components of acceleration at the location of the center of the gravity, and 3 degrees of freedom components of acceleration at the location of the operator seat were measured independently. The vibration characteristics of the combine were estimated with the power spectral density of the time series data of accelerations. From this research, the following results were obtained. 1. Vibration of a head-feeding combine under the stationary condition(engine, thresher and cutter are driven without harvesting) is mainly influenced by the engine. Further, 1/3, 1/2 (sub-harmonic) frequency components of the engine are observed besides engine driving frequency component(45Hz). 2. Vibration of a head-feeding combine under the harvesting condition is influenced by the engine, threshing unit and driving unit. Namely, some kinds of vibration frequency components in harvesting are observed compared with stationary condition. Further, sub-harmonic frequency components of the engine are observed besides engine driving frequency component as same as stationary condition. From these results, it may be concluded that vibration of a head-feeding combine is characteristics of semi-periodic and nonlinear vibration.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.688-694
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• 2009

In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary study on the piezoelectric energy harvesting performance of a Zr-doped $PbMg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3}O_3-PbTiO_3$ (PMN-PZT) single crystal beam. A novel piezoelectric beam cantilever structure is used to demonstrate the feasibility of generating AC voltage during a state of vibration. The energy-harvesting capability of a PMN-PZT beam is calculated and tested. The frequency response of the cantilever device shows that the first mode resonance frequency of the excitation model exists in the neighborhood of several hundreds of hertz, which is similar to the calculated value. These tests show that several significantly open AC voltages and sub-mW power are achieved. To test the possibility of a small scale power source for a ubiquitous sensor network service, energy conversion and the testing of storage experiment are also carried out.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.48-55
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• 2019

Soldiers have been exposed to the risk of chilblains in cold winters. Recent studies have described sensors and IOT devices that use independent power sources based on piezoelectric energy harvesting. Therefore, the heated shoes with an independent power source have been developed. For the application of energy harvesting to shoes, it is necessary to develop a unique harvester by considering human gait characteristics. Energy harvesters and ceramics were designed and fabricated in this study. The performances of these harvesters and ceramics were evaluated experimentally. Then, the harvesters and ceramics with superior performance were selected and applied to the system. Thereafter, the heating and charging performance of the system was tested under real walking conditions. The results show that the developed system can generate adequate energy to charge the battery and heat the shoes.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.519-533
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• 2023

This paper implements a simultaneous solar and thermal energy harvesting system, as a hybrid energy harvesting (HEH) system, to convert ambient light into electrical energy through photovoltaic (PV) cells and heat absorbed in the body of PV cells. Indeed, a solar panel equipped with serially connected thermoelectric generators not only converts the incoming light into electricity but also takes advantage of heat emanating from the light. In a conventional HEH system, the diode block is used to provide the path for the input source with the highest value. In this scheme, at each time, only one source can be handled to generate its output, while other sources are blocked. To handle this challenge of combining resources in HEH systems, this paper proposes a method for collecting all incoming energies and conveying its summation to the load via the current mirror cells in an approach similar to the maximum power point tracking. This technique is implemented using off-the-shelf components. The measurement results show that the proposed method is a realistic approach for supplying electrical energy to wireless sensor nodes and low-power electronics.