Extract energy from the environment to drive electronics circuits

Energy Harvesting, Ambient Energy Sourcing, Energy Scavenging... different terms to mean very much the same thing: extract energy from the environment to drive electronics circuits independent from the mains power or from a battery. The "raison d'être" of energy harvesting in wireless sensor applications is straightforward: ridding the data cable to read the sensor value solves only half of the problem: the installer still needs to run a power wire. And half a problem solved is as good as not solving it at all. Furthermore, replacing the mains power by a battery substitutes the wiring cost by a battery replacement problem, which is not an advance at all.

Energy from the environment is plentiful: solar light, vibration or motion are generally well understood. Example applications include soil acidity monitoring in precision farming using solar cells and motor monitoring in an industrial plant using vibration collectors. Vibration is already used widely in a well known consumer application: wrist-watches that do not need a battery nor rewinding. But also less obvious sources can generate sufficient energy to power a wireless sensor system: the temperature difference between two touching surfaces - such as a pipe carrying warm liquids and the surrounding atmosphere - can be used to drive a pressure sensor and the wireless communication system....

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