Wireless energy harvesting for rotor instrumentation in electrical machines

Abstract

In order to perform experiments on electrical machines, it is desirable to measure rotor parameters such as currents and temperatures. A Bluetooth module have been developed which sends data from the rotor, however this module is battery powered, and therefore the duration of the tests is limited. This paper presents a solution to this problem, by developing a rotor-mounted power supply system which can harvest energy from leakage magnetic flux inside the machine, by fixing an external loop to the rotor and making use of induced voltages in the loop. A full-bridge rectifier, boost converter and battery charging module was developed to supply sufficient power to the Bluetooth module.

Energy harvesting and wireless data transmission system for rotor instrumentation in electrical machines

“…Other practical issues such as construction, ease of retro-fitting to an existing rotor and mechanical robustness were also considered. This analysis has been reported in [15] and it was concluded that a dedicated rotor loop, as described below, is the best option. …”

“…Results for the first energy harvesting prototype were reported in [15]. A second version of the system has been built and tested.…”

“…The second prototype of the energy harvesting module was characterised on the laboratory bench with a low‐voltage, variable‐frequency AC power supply as was done for the first system reported in [15]. The power source was composed of a signal generator and amplifier to achieve the power level required by the circuit.…”

Vacuum packaging and semipassive chips for wireless temperature monitoring in industrial applications

“…Regarding the wireless autonomous solutions for monitoring industrial machines or processes, the research has been focused on wireless communication and energy harvesting as a power supply [4,5]. But, to the best of our knowledge, none of these reports make use of semipassive sensing technology.…”