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Self-Powered and Soft Polymer MEMS/NEMS Devices pp 1–30Cite as

MEMS/NEMS-Enabled Energy Harvesters as Self-Powered Sensors

Part of the SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology book series (BRIEFSAPPLSCIENCES)

Abstract

Chapter 1 reviews the recent progress in kinetic MEMS/NEMS-enabled energy harvesters as self-powered sensors. Recent advances and challenges in MEMS/NEMS-enabled self-sustained sensor working mechanisms including electromagnetic, piezoelectric, electrostatic, triboelectric, and magnetostrictive are reviewed and discussed. Recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) and sensor networks reveal new insight into the understanding of traditional power sources with the new characteristics of mobility, sustainability, and availability. Individually, the power consumption of each sensor unit is low; however, the number of units deployed is huge. As predicted by Cisco, trillions of sensors will be distributed on the earth by 2020. Conventional technologies which employ batteries to supply power may not be the choice. Energy harvesting systems as self-sustained power sources are capable of capturing and transforming unused ambient energy into the electrical energy. Intensive efforts during the last two decades toward the development of micro-/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS)-enabled energy harvesting technologies have yield breakthroughs in self-powered sensor evolutions.

Keywords

  • MEMS
  • Energy harvesting
  • Electromagnetic
  • Piezoelectrics
  • Triboelectric
  • Magnetostrictive

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-05554-7_1
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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51705429), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Key Laboratory fund of Science and Technology on Micro-system Laboratory (No. 614280401010417).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Systems for Aerospace, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China

    Kai Tao & Honglong Chang

  2. Unmanned System Research Institute, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China

    Kai Tao & Honglong Chang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies and the Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Jin Wu

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Lihua Tang

  5. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Jianmin Miao

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  1. Kai Tao
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  2. Honglong Chang
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Correspondence to Kai Tao , Jin Wu or Lihua Tang .

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Tao, K., Chang, H., Wu, J., Tang, L., Miao, J. (2019). MEMS/NEMS-Enabled Energy Harvesters as Self-Powered Sensors. In: Self-Powered and Soft Polymer MEMS/NEMS Devices. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05554-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05554-7_1

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