Development of renewable energy system for low power underwater devices

Abstract

Underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) are an emerging field in the research area as they have potential applications starting from pollution monitoring to defense and ocean exploration. Ocean monitoring is of great importance in marine scientific research. However, battery-operated devices utilized in such systems have limited power and maintenance is difficult. So, devices used underwater suffer from many research challenges and energy issues. Apart from all the problems, harvesting energy underwater is the main limiting factor. Nonrenewable energies come from sources that may not be replenished in our lifetime. Hence, it is very much essential to use renewable energy sources. Ocean has an unlimited amount of energy like wind energy, solar power, and tidal energy. Obtaining sufficient energy is sort of difficult since devices are underwater. Researchers are continuously working on it. Water energy is quite environmentally friendly, and it is a sustainable solution for a secure energy system. This paper implements a renewable energy system using piezoelectric (PZT) sensor, which generates sufficient power for lowpower underwater devices by employing two stage amplifier circuits. Experimental outcome shows the proposed energy harvesting system can generate a maximum voltage of 10.6 V and current of 10.1 mA which is sufficient to run low power underwater device.