Review and Analysis of Magnetic Energy Harvesters: A Case Study for Vehicular Applications

Energy harvesting (EH), as an enabling technology of energy derivation from ambient sources, has attracted much research attention in wireless sensor network (WSN) context. The magnetic energy harvester (MEH) introduces ambient energy harvesters’ most promising technological development. This paper presents a review and analysis of MEH applications in WSN like vehicular systems and technologies. The successful approaches are introduced and classified based on technical characteristics and working principles. The fundamentals of their operation are discussed in detail, and the power points of each method are reviewed. To select the optimal energy harvester, in this work a case study is provided for feeding navigational sensors mounted on a rotating wheel of vehicles. Finally, the performance of the developed MEH model is evaluated and discussed for harvesting energy at the rotating wheels of a ground vehicle. To offer electromagnetic field analysis of the studied MEH, the simulations are performed in Ansys Maxwell software for further harvested power evaluation.