Alternative power supply concepts for self-sufficient wireless sensor nodes by energy harvesting

Replacing batteries in wireless sensor nodes by energy harvesting enables a maintenance-free operation and an increasing degree of miniaturization at the cost of higher power management efforts. The limited power capability of environmental sources requires a careful investigation of the different harvesting opportunities to find the optimal source in a specific application scenario. Promising resources in the automotive area are kinetic and thermoelectric based harvesters. In this talk physical properties of energy converters are analyzed to show their restrictions and allow power estimation. In addition examples of already established self-sufficient sensors are presented.