MIT Energy Scavenger Harvests Power from Light, Vibrations, and Heat
From Many Sources, One Low-Power Energy Supply Christine Daniloff via MIT NewsCombining energy from multiple ambient sources generates a more stable supply for sensors Small power generators that can harvest energy from ambient sources like heat, vibrations, and light hold a lot of promise across a range of applications, particularly in things like remote monitoring. They can harvest the vibrations imparted by vehicles passing over a bridge to power sensors that monitor the bridge's structural integrity, for instance, or keep a network of wildfire-detecting sensors working in the remote wilderness, no batteries necessary. But these kinds of ambient power are often intermittent and unreliable--unless you can harvest several of them at the same time. That's exactly what a new chip developed by researchers at MIT is doing. MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering has turned out a lot of technology in this space previously, but the frustrations of engineers there are shared...