Powering Wireless Sensor Nodes for Industrial IoT Applications using Vibration Energy Harvesting

Electromagnetic Vibration Energy Harvesting (EM-VEH) is an attractive alternative to batteries as power source for wireless sensor nodes within the Internet of Things (IoT) in industrial environments. Indeed, there is often an abundance of available kinetic energy, in the form of machinery vibrations, that can be converted into electrical power through energy harvesting techniques. Ambient vibrations are generally broadband and multi-modal configurations can be exploited to improve the mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion. However, the additional challenge of energy conditioning (AC-to-DC conversion) brings into question what specific type of performance is to be expected in a real industrial application. This paper reports the operation of two practical IoT sensor nodes, continuously powered by the vibrations of a standard industrial compressor, using a multi-modal EM-VEH device, integrated with customised power management. The results show that the device and the power management circuit provides enough energy to receive and transmit data at minimum intervals of less than one minute. Descriptions of the system, test-bench, and the measured outcomes are presented.