Thermoelectric Powered High Temperature Wireless Sensing

This study describes use of a thermoelectric power converter to transform waste heat into electrical energy to power an RF receiver and transmitter, for use in harsh environment wireless temperature sensing and telemetry. The sensing and transmitting module employs a DS-1820 low power digital temperature sensor to perform temperature to voltage conversion, an ATX-34 RF transmitter, an ARX-34 RF receiver module, and a PIC16f84A microcontroller to synchronize data communication between them. The unit has been tested in a laboratory environment, and promising results have been obtained for an actual automotive wireless under hood temperature sensing and telemetry implementation.