Energy Harvesting Systems

Abstract

For the past few decades, the scientific community has been paying attention to energy harvesters to reduce the use of batteries as the main power source for IoT devices and MEMS. Energy harvesters allow for the use of ambient energy, mostly a by-product of an application, to generate electricity while relying on batteries as a backup option to store the excess energy. This chapter includes a review of each energy harvester type, subtype, configuration, usage, and power output to understand the different kinds of energy harvesters and motivate a discussion between their advantages and limitations. The chapter also discusses the advantages and the limitations of current storage options for energy harvesting and how applications can benefit from future research in this area. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges and future opportunities still open in the field of energy harvesters to obtain more reliable, cleaner, and cheaper energy sources.