This paper presents the electrical and thermal design of a thermoelectric energy harvester power system and its characterisation. The energy harvester is powered by a single Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) of 449 couples connected via a power conditioning circuit to an embedded processor. The aim of the work presented in this paper is to experimentally confirm the lowest ΔT measured across the T...

For light harvesters with a reaction center complex (LH1-RC complex) of three types, we propose an experiment to verify our analysis based upon antenna theories that automatically include the required structural information. Our analysis conforms to the current understanding of light-harvesting antennas in that we can explain known properties of these complexes. We provide an explanation for th...

The locomotion and load carriage energetics of the southwestern American harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex rugosus, were quantified at several temperatures within their normal foraging temperature range using a voluntary locomotion regime (‘running tube respirometer’). In a metabolic rate (MR) versus running speed regression, the intercepts for the individual ants differed significantly, so data were...

Social insect colonies operate without central control or any global assessment of what needs to be done by workers. Colony organization arises from the responses of individuals to local cues. Red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) regulate foraging using interactions between returning and outgoing foragers. The rate at which foragers return with seeds, a measure of food availability, sets ...

Wearable medical and electronic devices demand a similarly wearable electrical power supply. Humanbased piezoelectric energy harvesters may be the solution, but the mismatch between the typical frequencies of human activities and the optimal operating frequencies of piezoelectric generators calls for the implementation of a frequency up-conversion technique. A rotary piezoelectric energy harves...

This paper presents a wireless sensor node (WSN) system where an electromagnetic (EM) energy harvester is utilized for charging its rechargeable batteries while the system is operational. The capability and the performance of an in-house low-frequency EM energy harvester for charging rechargeable NiMH batteries were experimentally verified in comparison to a regular battery charger. Furthermore...

In this work, we present an automatized, computationally efficient and stable compact modeling technique for a large-scale multiport model of MEMS based piezoelectric energy harvester. The method includes structure preserving model order reduction based on Krylov subspaces. We further demonstrate a cosimulation between the reduced harvester model and the power circuitry. Introduction MEMS (micr...

This paper presents the design, fabrication and characterization of an electromagnetic MEMS energy harvester with ultra-broad operating bandwidth. The beam stretching induced nonlinear spring stiffness enables the resonance to extend from 65 Hz to 340 Hz and 400 Hz at accelerations of 0.5g and 1.0g, respectively. The ultra-wide bandwidth could benefit the harvester device for more efficient vib...