Conference proceeding
Design a Micro-wind and Solar Energy Harvesting System for a Wireless Sensor Node to Operate in Coastal and Marine Area as a Senior Design Project
Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers
23 Jun 2018
Abstract
Projects are a valuable component of applied sciences and engineering education. The design experience develops student’s lifelong learning skills, self-evaluations, self-discovery, and peer instruction acquired during the project analysis, design, implementation, critique, justification, and testing. Students learn industry-related concepts, skills and methods, to use manufacturer data sheets, technical manuals or application notes, and to specify design requirements. Team experience gives them a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that is quite often lacking in many engineering courses. In this paper, we are discussing one of our senior design projects. The team proposed to design a robust, reliable and low cost energy harvesting system to power a wireless sensor node. The power harvester system must have a long operation lifetime, by using two photovoltaic panels, a Savonius micro-wind turbine, and backup energy storage unit. The wireless sensor node is intended for monitoring river or coastal water environments, and is equipped with air temperature, pressure, humidity, and solar radiation sensors. The micro-wind turbine is also calibrated as a wind speed sensor. System description, characteristics, and performances are presented in details, as well as aspects of the educational experience, such as project organization, implementation, field tests, and outcomes. Educational project aspects, brainstorming discussions, component selections, system analysis, the estimation of system performances and characteristics, and the adopted design solution are also presented. Final design and system configuration include: power electronics, maximum power point tracking algorithms, control and power management strategies, photovoltaic modules, microcontrollers, and battery selection, micro-wind turbine design and manufacturing, and the overall system tests. The project is a good example of multi-disciplinary design, providing a valuable hands-on experience to the students, project management methods, and finally a working prototype of an energy harvesting systems. The ultimate project goals are to explore and enhance students understanding of the engineering principles, power electronics, control, circuit simulation and analysis, renewable energy technologies, and hands-on demonstration of system prototyping.
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Details
- Title
- Design a Micro-wind and Solar Energy Harvesting System for a Wireless Sensor Node to Operate in Coastal and Marine Area as a Senior Design Project
- Creators
- Radian BeluRichard ChiouLucian Ionel Cioca
- Publication Details
- Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers
- Publisher
- American Society for Engineering Education-ASEE
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Engineering Leadership and Society/Engineering Technology
- Identifiers
- 991019174074104721