An Electromagnetic Generator for Self-powered Wireless Sensor Node on Transmission Line

Transmission lines are susceptible to breeze vibration, threatening the operation of power grid. The self-powered system based on electromagnetic generator (EMG) provides an ideal method for online monitoring of various parameters of transmission lines and has the potential for large-scale deployment. This paper reports a miniature EMG having high energy output, with a volume of only 62 cm
³
. The vibration pickup unit in this generator has multimodal characteristics, which can harvest the vibration energy from arbitrary direction and multiple frequencies. The EMG uses two magnets coupled by winding coil to generate electricity. At 0.5g acceleration excitation along X-axis and Y-axis directions, the peak voltages of the EMG reach 1 and 0.8 V, respectively. While along Z-axis direction under the same acceleration excitation, the peak voltage and power of the EMG reaches as high as 2.4 V and 35.5 mW, respectively.