A self-supporting wireless IoT node that uses kinetic energy harvesting

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is expected to be the next revolution of the internet where trillions of IoT nodes will be deployed on a global scale. It is foreseen that a considerable part of these will be deployed in smart buildings and smart homes where they will provide innovative solutions, products, and services. However, this vision contains one major challenge in terms of providing energy to the wireless part of the IoT nodes. This paper proposes a specific solution in form of harvesting energy from a vibrating cantilever beam that has been set into vibration by some user activity. This harvested energy is used to power a transmitter with sufficient energy to overcome the considerable path-losses found inside buildings. From simulations it has been found that a simple user activity such as opening a closet provides enough energy to transmit a short message (one byte) at a distance of approximately 10 meters in an indoor environment.