Micro energy harvesting is the conversion of ambient energy, such as body warmth or machine vibration, into electric energy to locally power embedded, small-scale devices such as wireless personal health-monitoring systems or environmental sensors, making them independent of rapidly exhausted batteries or location restricted power grids. Enabling this unprecedented level of autonomy, particularly at the micro-scale, requires innovation in harvesting devices, power management circuits, and complete system design, in order to ensure the desired functionality and reliability of the respective device even if the supply of ambient energy varies with time.
This book addresses a wide range of aspects of energy harvesting at the micro-scale, with a focus on miniaturized and micro-fabricated devices. It provides an overview of the field by compiling knowledge on design, materials development, device realization and aspects of system integration. The book covers emerging technologies such as nanotechnology-based materials and harvesters, as well as applications in power management, energy storage, medical applications and low-power system electronics. In addition, it surveys the energy harvesting principles being developed at the micro-scale based on chemical, thermal, mechanical as well as hybrid and nanotechnology approaches.
About the Author
Danick Briand obtained his PhD degree in the field of micro-chemical systems from the Institute of Microtechnology (IMT), University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, in 2001. He is currently a team leader at EPFL IMT Samlab in the field of EnviroMEMS, Energy and Enviromental MEMS. He has been awarded the Eurosensors Fellowship in 2010. He has been author or co-author on more than 150 papers published in scientific journals and conference proceedings. He is a member of several scientific and technical conference committees in the field of sensors and MEMS, participating also in the organization of workshop and conferences. His research interests in the field of sensors and microsystems include environmental and energy MEMS.
Eric M. Yeatman has been a member of academic staff in Imperial College London since 1989, and Professor of Micro-Engineering since 2005. He is Deputy Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and has published more than 160 papers and patents on optical devices and materials, and micro-electro-mechanical systems. In 2011 he was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal. He has been principal or co-investigator on more than 20 research projects, and has acted as a design consultant for several international companies. His current research interests are in radio frequency and photonic MEMS devices, energy sources for wireless devices, and sensor networks.
