A Borden Cable-Based Energy Harvester for Low-Frequency Rotary Motion

The advancement of semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing techniques has significantly propelled the integration of embedded technology and sensor technology into smart devices. Additionally, the emergence of lightweight wireless sensor networks has opened up expansive possibilities for deploying artificial intelligence technology based on cloud computing, edge computing, or on-chip implementation in distributed wireless nodes. Nonetheless, the adoption of a more robust wireless sensor network inevitably entails increased energy consumption. Currently, batteries serve as the prevailing energy storage solution, but batteries cannot sustain high-intensity work for a long time. Moreover, the maintenance, replacement, and environmentally friendly disposal of batteries pose significant challenges for the widespread adoption of smart wearable devices. Harvesting mechanical energy from monitored object is a very promising solution for continuous power supply of future wearable devices. Techniques for harvesting mechanical energy through rotational motion have been extensively studied. However, these technologies do not take into account the application conditions that the energy transducer end and energy capture end are separated by a certain distance, so there are great limitations in flexible arrangement. In this paper, a Borden cable-based energy harvester joint was developed, and the energy harvesting characteristics were tested and evaluated under different working conditions. This study also tests and evaluates the power consumption of typical wireless sensor nodes, which provides a reference for future research on power-adjustable flexible energy harvesters under different working conditions.