TY - GEN
T1 - Active control based energy harvesting for battery-less wireless traffic sensors
T2 - 2008 American Control Conference, ACC
AU - Vijayaraghavan, K.
AU - Rajamani, R.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - This paper presents a novel battery-less wireless sensor that can be embedded in the road and used to measure traffic flow rate, speed and vehicle weight. Compared to existing inductive loop based traffic sensors, the new sensor is expected to provide increased reliability, easy installation and low maintenance costs. The sensor uses power only for wireless transmission and has ZERO idle power loss. Hence the sensor is expected to be extremely energy efficient. Energy to power this sensor is harvested from the short duration vibrations that results when an automobile passes over the sensor. Since all of the earlier work in literature on vibration energy harvesting has focused on continuous sources of vibration, this paper focuses on short duration vibrations and on developing low power control algorithms that can be implemented on the sensor using an analog circuit. To this effect this paper develops and compares three control algorithms "Fixed threshold switching", "Maximum Voltage switching" and "Switched Inductor" for maximizing this harvested energy. The "Switched inductor" algorithm is shown to be the most effective at maximizing harvested energy. Experimental results are presented in the final section of the paper and show that adequate energy can be harvested from the passing of each axle of a vehicle to enable successful wireless transmission of data.
AB - This paper presents a novel battery-less wireless sensor that can be embedded in the road and used to measure traffic flow rate, speed and vehicle weight. Compared to existing inductive loop based traffic sensors, the new sensor is expected to provide increased reliability, easy installation and low maintenance costs. The sensor uses power only for wireless transmission and has ZERO idle power loss. Hence the sensor is expected to be extremely energy efficient. Energy to power this sensor is harvested from the short duration vibrations that results when an automobile passes over the sensor. Since all of the earlier work in literature on vibration energy harvesting has focused on continuous sources of vibration, this paper focuses on short duration vibrations and on developing low power control algorithms that can be implemented on the sensor using an analog circuit. To this effect this paper develops and compares three control algorithms "Fixed threshold switching", "Maximum Voltage switching" and "Switched Inductor" for maximizing this harvested energy. The "Switched inductor" algorithm is shown to be the most effective at maximizing harvested energy. Experimental results are presented in the final section of the paper and show that adequate energy can be harvested from the passing of each axle of a vehicle to enable successful wireless transmission of data.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=52449116794&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=52449116794&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ACC.2008.4587217
DO - 10.1109/ACC.2008.4587217
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:52449116794
SN - 9781424420797
T3 - Proceedings of the American Control Conference
SP - 4579
EP - 4584
BT - 2008 American Control Conference, ACC
Y2 - 11 June 2008 through 13 June 2008
ER -