Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from Automotive Wheels

The need for energy harvesting technology is steadily growing in the field of self-powered sensor systems for intelligent wheels. This paper has proposed a piezoelectric sensor-based energy harvester that can supply energy to low-powered sensors embedded in the intelligent vehicle wheels. The next generation of cars will be equipped with different kinds of integrated sensors for facilitating advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD). The wheel spoke-mounted piezoelectric energy harvester proposed in this paper can convert rotating mechanical energy to electrical energy and can be used for charging the battery. Simulation experiments were carried out using MATLAB-Simulink for a speed range of 20–120 km/hr and the harvested energy is used to charge a lead–acid battery with an initial state of charge of 60% and 8 V. From the results, it is observed that from 60 km/hr onwards sufficient power is harvested, which can be used to charge a 12 V lead–acid battery. At a speed of 120 km/hr, the state of charge of the battery increases to 61.31% in just 10 s of charging time, and battery voltages increase to 9.263 V. This shows enough power required to charge a 12 V lead–acid battery is harvested by the wheel spoke-mounted piezoelectric energy harvester proposed in this paper. The results demonstrate that the proposed piezoelectric energy harvester can be used as an energy source to power the low-consumption sensors embedded on the intelligent wheels after making minor improvements.