Towards self-powered sensing using nanogenerators for automotive systems

Abstract

Harvesting energy from the working environment of vehicles is important for wirelessly monitoring their operation conditions and safety. This review aims at reporting different sensory and energy harvesting technologies developed for automotive and active safety systems. A few dominant sensing and power harvesting mechanisms in automotive systems are illustrated, then, triboelectric, piezoelectric and pyroelectric nanogenerators, and their potential for utilization in automotive systems are discussed considering their high power density, flexibility, different operating modes, and cost in comparison with other mechanisms. Various ground vehicles' sensing mechanisms including position, thermal, pressure, chemical and gas composition, and pressure sensors are presented. A few novel types self-powered sensing mechanisms are presented for each of the abovementioned sensor categories using nanogenerators. The last section includes the automotive systems and subsystems, which have the potential to be used for energy harvesting, such as suspension and tires. The potential of nanogenerators for developing new self-powered sensors for automotive applications, which in the near future, will be an indispensable part of the active safety systems in production cars, is also discussed in this review article.

Study in circular auxetic structures for efficiency enhancement in piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting

“…Energy harvesting from the ambient vibration in different environments is an active line of research. Conversion of the vibration energy to electricity is mainly achievable through three popular methods namely electromagnetic [14][15][16] , triboelectric [17][18][19] and piezoelectric [20][21][22][23] . Piezoelectric elements have been widely utilized in vibration energy harvesting so far [24][25][26] , however, the low power and low efficiency of the PZT based energy harvesters is still a main challenge.…”

Low-temperature large-area fabrication of ZnO nanowires on flexible plastic substrates by solution-processible metal-seeded hydrothermal growth

“…Possessing wide band gap (~ 3.37 eV), large exciton binding energy (~ 60 meV), non-central symmetric wurtzite crystal structure (a = 0.3249 nm, c = 0.5205 nm), and biocompatibility, zinc oxide (ZnO) has been one of the most versatile metal oxide materials [1,2]. ZnO and its microand nanostructures have accordingly enabled many diverse functional devices covering electronics, photonics, transducers, bioengineering, and so on [3][4][5][6][7][8]. While a variety of nanoscale configurations are available for ZnO, one-dimensional (1D) nanowires (NWs) may be particularly useful and available for most of the practical applications because of their structural simplicity and growth controllability [2,[9][10][11].…”

“…SEM images showing hydrothermal ZNW growth results using (a, b) no seed and (c-e) drop-cast seed coatings. Enlarged SEM images(1)(2)(3)(4) shown in e are taken from four different spots marked in (d). All growths are done at 90 °C for 150 min Hydrothermal ZNW growth results using spin-coated seed coatings: a SEM image of the nanoscale texture of the seed surface, b optical image and c SEM image of the 4" wafer-scale ZNW growth result, and d-e top and side morphologies of the ZNWs grown on spin-coated seed coatings for different growth times.…”

TrafficWave: Generative Deep Learning Architecture for Vehicular Traffic Flow Prediction

“…In order to have good predictions, traffic data should be accurately and continuously collected over long periods and at all hours (both day and night). The most common methods of automatic detection are pneumatic tubes, aerial photography, infrared sensors, magneto dynamic sensors, triboelectric cables, video images, VIM sensors, microwave sensors, and many others [3,4]. These conditions are leading technological research to produce increasingly refined instruments and automatic detection systems.…”