Biomechanical energy harvested wireless sensing for food storage

Abstract

Biomechanical energy in food cold storage is a promising sustainable energy for realizing the self-powered wireless sensing for guaranteeing the food quality and safety by door status monitoring. This paper proposes a biomechanical energy harvested wireless sensing system for food cold storage. The system includes the biomechanical energy harvester (BEH), the micro-supercapacitor, the wireless transmitter and the wireless receiver. The biomechanical energy from the door opening and closing was harvested by the BEH with four gear sets as the speed increaser and an electromagnetic generator (EMG) as the electric generator driven by a crank. The generated electricity was then stored by a micro-supercapacitor. The wireless transmitter was powered by the micro-supercapacitor for transmitting the door status sensor data to wireless receiver by 433 MHz wireless radio frequency (RF). The wireless receiver could indicate the door status by light emitting diodes (LEDs) and also wirelessly transmit to smartphone by Bluetooth. The system could monitor the door status in real time by harvesting the biomechanical energy from door opening and closing, improve the sustainability of the wireless sensing system and guarantee the food quality and safety in food cold storage.

Keywords

• Biomechanical energy harvesting
• Wireless sensing
• Food quality and safety
• Electromagnetic generator
• Food monitoring