Energy Harvesting Chip and the Chip Based Power Supply Development for a Wireless Sensor Network.docVIP

Sensors 2008, 8, 7690-7714; DOI: 10.3390/s8127690 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Energy Harvesting Chip and the Chip Based Power Supply Development for a Wireless Sensor Network Dasheng Lee Department of Energy and Refrigerating Air-conditioning Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, 106; E-Mail: f11167@.tw; Tel.: +886-2-2771-2171; Fax: +886-2-2731-4919 Received: 7 November 2008; in revised form: 24 November 2008 / Accepted: 24 November 2008 / Published: 2 December 2008 Abstract: In this study, an energy harvesting chip was developed to scavenge energy from artificial light to charge a wireless sensor node. The chip core is a miniature transformer with a nano-ferrofluid magnetic core. The chip embedded transformer can convert harvested energy from its solar cell to variable voltage output for driving multiple loads. This chip system yields a simple, small, and more importantly, a battery-less power supply solution. The sensor node is equipped with multiple sensors that can be enabled by the energy harvesting power supply to collect information about the human body comfort degree. Compared with lab instruments, the nodes with temperature, humidity and photosensors driven by harvested energy had variation coefficient measurement precision of less than 6% deviation under low environmental light of 240 lux. The thermal comfort was affected by the air speed. A flow sensor equipped on the sensor node was used to detect airflow speed. Due to its high power consumption, this sensor node provided 15% less accuracy than the instruments, but it still can meet the requirement of analysis for predicted mean votes (PMV) measurement. The energy harvesting wireless sensor network (WSN) was deployed in a 24-hour convenience store to detect thermal comfort degree from the air conditioning control. During one year operation,