Wireless sensor node with hybrid energy harvesting for air-flow rate sensing

This paper presents a hybrid-powered wireless sensor node using enhanced triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) as both energy harvester and air-flow sensor and two 11 cm2 solar panels as extra power supply. A low budget commercial RF microcontroller is included for data conversion, signal processing and wireless transmission. The method of flow-rate detection depends on the vibration frequency of the film inside the triboelectric generator. Experiment results show that this flow sensor is capable of detecting flow rate from 7.6 m/s to 17.1 m/s, with a standard deviation of 3.4, 3s setup time and 30s charge time. With a Raspberry Pi, the wireless signal can be received and delivered to Internet and therefore, can be monitored easily from any portable terminal with internet-access.