Vibratory Energy Harvester for Human Centered Transportation System Applications

Human centered transportation systems assume a large role in our daily life. In order to improve the quality and safeness of the systems, an ultra-small wearable sensor network that monitors the human operator's activity is heavily demanded. The system is constituted by the fully batch fabricated MEMS (Micro electromechanical systems) sensors, MCU (Micro control unit), ICs (Integrated circuits), RF (Radio frequency) module and also energy harvester for power supply. The energy harvester is one of the small power generators that obtain the electrical energy from the ambient environment. This autonomous power supply provides the continuous monitoring system for long periods. This paper reports a vibratory type energy harvester by using electrostatic mechanism and its application for the human centered transportation system.