Energy scavenging for energy efficiency in networks and applications

Telecommunication networks will play a huge part in enabling ecosustainability of human activity; one of the first steps towards this is to dramatically increase network energy efficiency. In this paper we present two novel approaches for energy scavenging in networks. One involves thermal energy scavenging for improving wireless base station energy efficiency, and the other involves mechanical energy scavenging for powering sensors in sensor networks, for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, and for smart grid applications. Power amplifier (PA) transistors in base stations waste 30 percent of the total energy used in a wireless access network (WAN) as heat to the environment. We propose a thermoelectric energy recovery module (TERM) to recover electricity from the waste heat of PA transistors. A fully coupled thermoelectric (TE) model, combining thermoelectricity and heat transfer physics, is developed to explore the power generation performance and efficiency as well as the thermal performance of the TERM. The TE model is comprehensively used to determine optimized pellet geometries for power generation and efficiency as a function of PA transistor heat dissipation, heat sink performance, and load resistance. Maximum power generation and efficiency for various parametric conditions are also explored. Untapped kinetic energy is almost everywhere in the form of vibrations. This energy can be converted into electrical energy by means of transducers to power wireless sensors and mobile electronics in the range of microwatts to a few milliwatts. However, many problems limit the efficiency of current harvesting generators: narrow bandwidth, low power density, micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) scaling, and inconsistency of vibrating sources. We explore energy scavenger designs based on multiple-mass systems to increase harvesting efficiency. A theoretical and experimental study of two degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) vibration-powered generators is presented. Both electromagnetic and piezoelectric conversion methods are modeled by using a general approach. Experimental results for the multi-resonant system are in agreement with the analytical predictions and demonstrate significantly better performance in terms of maximum power density per total mass and a wider bandwidth compared to single DOF (1-DOF) generators.