1.2 Evaluation of Energy Harvesting Devices for Industrial Applications
- Event
- ettc2020 - European Test and Telemetry Conference
2020-06-23 - 2020-06-25
Virtual Conference - Chapter
- 1. Sensors
- Author(s)
- L. B. Hörmann, T. Hölzl, C. Kastl - Linz Center of Mechatronics GmbH, Linz (Austria), P. Priller - AVL List GmbH, Graz (Austria), A. Springer - Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz (Austria)
- Pages
- 31 - 37
- DOI
- 10.5162/ettc2020/1.2
- ISBN
- 978-3-9819376-3-3
- Price
- free
Abstract
The use of energy harvesting devices (EHDs), such as solar cells and thermoelectric generators, of-fers a promising opportunity for powering self-sufficient wireless devices. This becomes more im-portant due to the miniaturization of electronic components and the resulting reduction in power con-sumption of integrated circuits. As a result, wiring and maintenance costs can be reduced or possibly omitted at all. However, the available output power of EHDs is highly dependent on the mounting loca-tion as well as on environmental conditions and may vary greatly over time. Therefore, it is meaningful to evaluate the EHDs at the location of use over a certain period of time in order to characterize them in real world scenarios. In this paper, we present a mobile and wireless measurement system for the characterization of EHDs. The measurement system enables the acquisition of different EHDs’ char-acteristics for specific applications under various environmental conditions. This simplifies the selec-tion of a suitable EHD and the design process of an energy management system for a particular appli-cation. An evaluation of the implemented measurement system has been carried out by characterizing a specific solar cell at different illumination levels for an industrial application.