Self-powered wireless sensor node for flow and temperature sensing

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation and test of a self-powered wireless sensor node using enhanced triboelectric nanogenerator (E-TriG) as both energy harvester and wireless sensor node for flow rate and temperature detection. RF microcontroller with low power consumption is included for data conversion, signal processing and wireless signal transmission. The flow-rate detection is based on the maximum voltage of a capacitor, which is charged by E-TriGs during certain period. Experiment results show that this flow sensor is capable of detecting flow rate from 5.8 m/s to 17.3 m/s with a standard deviation of 0.3% and the temperature of 24.2 °C (±0.3 °C) in the actual test. Each operation requires less than 40 ms for data sampling, processing and transmission. With a Raspberry Pi, the wireless signal can be received and delivered to Internet and therefore, can be monitored easily from any portable terminal with internet-access.