Energy Harvesting Techniques and Trends in Electronic Applications

Abstract

Energy harvesting/scavenging is a technique in which ambient energy is extracted from the surroundings and converting it to another form, which can be later used for diverse applications. This chapter focuses on the techniques to acquire various forms of energy and converting them into electrical energy to be utilized for portable electronic devices and sensors which need low power for their operation. Sources for energy harvesting are wind, light, temperature, acoustic signals, fluid flow, electromagnetic (EM) waves, mechanical vibrations, pressure, etc. Also, several sensors like turbines, photovoltaic cells, thermoelectric generators, antennas, solar panels, photodiodes, and piezoelectric sensors are used to capture the ambient energy. These energy harvesting techniques are used in transportation, civil infrastructure, smart houses, weather monitoring, healthcare, defense, manufacturing, production, etc. This chapter also presents state of the art on different energy harvesting techniques, energy conversion methods/principles, merits and demerits of each technique, applications focusing toward portable electronic devices and sensors, and current ways to power electronic devices with energy derived from the ambient sources. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.