Energy Harvesting Methods in Aviation

Each modern aircraft use a large number of sensors, which task is to sense various operating parameters. These are subsequently sent to the appropriate computer to processes them. Because the sensors are very often located in remote parts of the aircraft, their power and signal wires have to be quite long. Moreover, the large number of wires and conductors complicates the design of the aircraft, especially their placement and clamping in non-pressurized parts and near fuel tanks. For these reasons, it is more convenient to use sensors with own power supply and which use a wireless communication with a computer. Today, most of remotely located sensors use electrochemical voltage sources, however these have environmental and reliability issues. The solution is to use sensors that generate their own energy. This article points out the possibility of using on-board sensors with energy harvesting technology.