Multi-Source Energy Harvesting System for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Due to increase in its wide range of applications, underwater wireless sensor nodes are gaining importance and there is need to develop reliable underwater sensor networks. Major hindrance to performance of underwater networks is power supply to nodes. The ultimate aim in designing energy harvesters is to provide continuous power supply for node system in adequate environmental energy conditions. To achieve continual, reliable and efficient power supply for underwater sensors, we propose multi source energy harvester system which manages energies from piezoelectric harvesting and microbial fuel cell. Analytical expressions are obtained for proposed system and are validated using extensive simulations. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.