A self-powered tilt angle sensor for tall buildings based on the coupling of multiple triboelectric nanogenerator units

Suffering from the particular working environment, it still remains challenging to monitor the inclination state of tall buildings (such as transmission line tower, street lamp and aerogenerator) in real time relying on traditional methods, which also consume considerable human and financial cost. On the other hand, there is often rich wind energy in the ambient environment where tall buildings located, but it is always neglected. Here we propose a self-powered tilt angle sensor based on an energy-harvesting triboelectric nanogenerator (EH-TENG) and a tiltsensing triboelectric nanogenerator (TS-TENG). The rotation-mode EH-TENG thriving on soft-contact can achieve satisfying energy harvest at ultra-low rotation speed through reasonable structural design and material selection, realizing sufficient utilization of natural wind energy. When tilt of tall buildings occurs under abnormal conditions, the sanded PTFE pellet in TS-TENG as a moving part can respond to external disturbances sensitively, and its output signal is able to stably activate the trigger circuit to alert. With the cooperation of energy harvesting module and tilt sensing module, a self-powered tilt state sensor is realized and can work continuously to protect tall buildings. This work will expand the application scenarios of TENG in the infrastructure field.