“Design and development of magnetic field harvester to power wireless sensors in smart Grid”

Abstract Real time monitoring of high voltage devices in smart grid is implemented using wireless sensors. They ensure reliable power transfer and avoid cascading power failures. Powering these sensors remotely is a challenge. This paper presents a novel method of powering sensors remotely using magnetic field harvester. A dumbbell shaped magnetic core is designed and optimized to harvest magnetic field near high voltage bus bars/transformers in electrical substation. The harvested power is rectified and boosted. Impedance matching circuit is designed to obtain maximum power transfer to the wireless sensor. The energy thus harvested is used to power wireless sensors and make them self sustainable. The experimental results show that the proposed core with 40,000 turns can harvest 17.6 mW of output power when placed in magnetic flux density of 9 µTrms.