In this paper, we describe a novel animal-tracking-system, solely powered by thermal energy harvesting. The tracker achieves an outstanding 100W of electrical power harvested over an area of only 2 times 20.5cm2, using the temperature difference between the animal’s fur and the environment, with a total weight of 286g. The steps to enhance the power income are presented and validated in a field-test, using a system that fulfills common tracking-tasks, including GPS with a fix every 1,1h–1,5h, activity and temperature measurements, all data wirelessly transmitted via (LoRaWAN) at a period of 14min. Furthermore, we describe our ultra low power design that achieves an overall sleep power consumption of only 8W and is able to work down to temperature differences of 0.9K applied to the TEG.
Femtosecond laser‐produced optical absorbers for solar‐thermal energy harvesting