A review study on energy harvesting systems for vehicles

Abstract

The widespread and increasing consumption of fossil-based fuels as an energy source causes a rapid decrease of these natural sources, as well as an increase of pollution in the atmosphere. Fuel oil, one of the products of fossil fuels, is today the commonly used energy source for transportation. The importance of contributing to the fuel economy and of increasing environmental consciousness have necessitated certain measures in the automotive sector, as well as in other industrial sectors. Therefore, the technological developments recently carried out in the automotive sector aim to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, for example by recovering waste energy in vehicles. In this direction, efforts have been centered upon the development of energy harvesting systems that provide energy recovery from dynamic parts of the vehicles, such as suspensions. Moreover, the regenerative braking systems that recover some amount of kinetic energy of the vehicles slowing down have been developed and have been in use long since. In this study, research studies on providing the recovery of the vehicles’ waste energy are reviewed with their comparisons.

Keywords

• energy harvesting
• hybrid/electrical vehicles
• regenerative braking
• vehicle suspension systems
• vehicle vibrations