Energy Harvesting Techniques to Power Wireless Sensor Systems

Traditional batteries are the main source of power in most of the wireless sensor networks these days. As the world will progress to the more wireless sensor networks in future, the demand for batteries will also increase. The traditional batteries normally do not pose a threat to the environment during their active life. But once the batteries are out of their life cycle the decomposition phase contributes to the environmental pollution. Batteries have a limited lifetime due to which changing them at regular intervals is necessary to keep the systems running. This puts a lot of emphasis on the need to find a new reliable and environmentally friendly solution. Sometimes, replacing batteries is a difficult/ expensive process especially in the domain of wireless sensor networks. This puts the energy harvesting solutions in light and makes research in this domain a really attractive solution. One of the most common phenomenon available in nature is friction. The electrostatic energy harvesting methods can be used to convert the energy in the environment to a useful form of energy such as electrical and thus eliminate the need of using traditional batteries. In this thesis we will focus on Tribo Electric Nano Generators (TENG). In this thesis, I have tried to explore this new area of research by discussing the work of many different researchers.